


Servare Soli

by TurboToast



Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alcohol, Blood and Gore, Body Horror, Bugs & Insects, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Turned Into Vampire, Daedric shenanigans, Drugs, F/F, Fantastic Racism, Food, Non-dragonborn main character, Tentacle Monsters, Tentacles, Vampires, You Have Been Warned, there will be blood - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-11
Updated: 2019-08-05
Packaged: 2019-10-08 10:53:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 26,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17385128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TurboToast/pseuds/TurboToast
Summary: As a bounty hunter, Helreca's life was fairly stable. There would always be bandits to hunt down, bringing a steady stream of coin into her pockets. As long as the gods didn't intervene, she could live like this. This life agreed with her.But then the nightmares started.





	1. Chapter 1

Helreca sighed and pulled another taffy treat from one of her pouches, nibbling on the end. The sun had almost started tinting the horizon orange already, and if the pathetic excuse for a highwayman she’d been sent to scoop up didn’t poke his head out of the woodworks soon, she’d be closer to Black-Briar Lodge than Riften when he finally did. The food those mead-snobs served up there was pretty damn good, but it was also costly and she’d have to suffer their snobbery while eating it. The highwayman should better hurry.

So far there was no sign of him, though.

Fortunately, it was nice riding weather, otherwise he’d catch her in a horrible mood. Why couldn’t he lurk around Lake Honrich? At least the view there was nice, nicer than the odd ruin and walls of rock. It wasn’t exactly warm outside anymore either. Harvest’s End approached fast, and getting caught outside after nightfall quickly turned into an uncomfortable situation. Golden and orange leaves clung to the trees for dear life, and a thin layer coated the forest floor, crunching under Kilian’s hooves. The gelding’s ears listened for noises bouncing between the valley’s steep walls, but he continued trotting along the cobblestone path. He probably enjoyed the leisurely pace. Helreca put him through enough every other day. Tall and brawny, Kil was typical for a horse in Skyrim, but he wasn’t exactly made for chasing bandits through the Rift. What he lacked in speed and agility, he more than made up for with endurance.

Once she got paid for bringing this bandit in, Helreca would have to buy him some treats.

When the last bit of her taffy treat vanished in her mouth, Kil’s ears perked up, pointing ahead. Helreca made sure her unassuming linen cloak covered the sword hanging from her hip and squinted at the bend that came up ahead. A faint note of smoke hung in the air. As she approached the bend, a broken horse-cart came into view, its detached wheel resting against its board wall. She tucked her hands under the cloak and scoffed. Amateurs.

As soon as she rode past the cart, a stocky man in ill-fitting imperial armor half jumped, half stumbled onto the road in front of her with a pitted sword in his hands, blocking her path.

“Halt! In the name of the Empire,” he belted, trying his damnedest to look as intimidating as possible. “You can’t go any further unless you give us the road, um, fee.”

Keeping her composure and not breaking out into laughter became harder with every passing second. “A ‘road fee,’ you say, good man?” Helreca raised her hands. “I’m afraid I’ll have to look through my saddleba—”

A groan cut her off. “Do you have to fuck everything up, Rolf?” The voice came from behind, and another blade glinted in the corner of her eye. “Hand over your belongings, gray-skin!”

Helreca threw her cloak off and leisurely descended from her horse, raising an eyebrow at Rolf’s friend. “Nah,” she said, and took a neatly coiled up rope out of her saddlebag. “I’d offer for you to come with me willingly“ —she sidestepped easily as Rolf’s friend charged at her — “...thought so.”

With an angry growl, Rolf’s friend swung his hatchet at her in a wide arc. Helreca took a step backwards, making him swing at nothing, while energy surged through her left arm and shot out a razor-sharp icicle, right into his thigh. His leg gave out under him, and he hit the ground with a dull thud. The angry growl turned into a pained scream that fizzled out into an almost pitiful whimper. Helreca kicked the hatchet out of his reach and turned towards Rolf, who stood in the middle of the road like he was rooted to the spot.

“Alright. Rolf, was it?”

He nodded and tensed up even more, the tip of his sword trembling in the air.

“Either you’re going to drop that thing and let me stow you on Kilian’s back nice and snug,” Helreca explained, switching the rope to her left hand, and pulling her sword from its scabbard a hand’s width, “or I’m gonna have to use this. Your choi— hey!” Her head whipped around towards Rolf’s friend and the knife in his hand.

“Fucking knife-eared bitch, I’ll kill you,” he spat, waving the knife around in front of him.

Helreca gave a sigh and drew her sword. They never knew when to stop. “Sure you will.”

With a quick upwards slash, she severed the bandit’s hand that held the knife and carried the momentum into a spin, bringing the blade down on his neck and slicing his head clean off.

Rolf’s sword clattered to the ground. “Jorgen!” What little confidence there’d been in his voice during the ambush, it had disappeared.

“Oh, that was Jorgen?” Helreca wiped her sword on Jorgen’s gambeson and scowled when his blood just smeared across the blade. After she fished a rag out of her saddlebags and cleaned her sword off with it, she turned back to Rolf. “Look, I get paid to deliver your sorry ass to the Riften guard in more or less one piece.” She gave a shrug. “So you can either make this relatively simple and painless for yourself, or…” Holding up the rope, she nodded in the direction of Jorgen’s corpse.

Rolf fell to his knees, looking up at Helreca with tears welling up in his eyes. “P-Please, don’t do this, milady, I- Everything but that! Maven is going to— “

“I don’t give a skeever’s ass what Maven’s going to do,” Helreca said and walked around him, kicking his sword towards Jorgen’s hatchet. “I get paid to deliver you to the guard, so that’s what I’m going to do.” She grabbed his arm, twisted it upwards and slung the rope around his wrist.

“But— “

“Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.” Helreca tied Rolf’s arms together behind his back and pushed him face first into the dirt. “Maybe don’t rob people on the road to Black-Briar Lodge when you’re so afraid of Maven fucking Black-Briar.”

Rolf couldn’t go anywhere like this, with his legs and arms tied up. Hunkering down next to Jorgen’s corpse, Helreca gave a sigh. The red gambeson that had doubtlessly once belonged to some poor imperial soldier who’d run into one too many Stormcloaks was much too large for him and hung off his body in tatters. On the belt that held it together, Jorgen had stored a small sack that gave off a suspiciously metallic clink when Helreca lifted it. She took out her knife and cut it off, stored it in her saddlebag. Maybe she’d keep it, maybe she’d turn it in. Sometimes people offered a finder’s fee.

If she wanted to be back in Riften by nightfall, she’d have to hurry. Jorgen’s body still lay in the middle of the road, and she couldn’t very well leave it there. As much as it definitely wasn’t her job to get rid of it, it’d make the area even more dangerous to travel than it already was. Getting robbed by these two wastrels was probably less trouble than the sort of pest a rotting body would attract.

Helreca grabbed one of the leather buckles on the front of his armor and dragged him towards the broken horse cart, leaving a slick trail of red behind her. She tossed him onto the cart unceremoniously, the wood creaking in complaint at the rough treatment. Jorgen’s head landed next to his body, and seconds later, flames shot out of Helreca’s hands and engulfed the cart, filling the air with the smell of burning wood and flesh. That’d do.

Without a word, Helreca grabbed the collar of Rolf’s armor and dragged him towards Kilian, before she lifted him onto the horse’s back, groaning. The remaining length of the rope was just enough to fasten him to the saddle.

“Hey Rolf, know if there’s a bounty out for your friend, too?” Helreca asked over her shoulder and picked up Jorgen’s hand from the floor. 

Rolf tried to shift on Kil’s back so he could see, but that only made Kil let out an annoyed huff. “I don’t know, really,” Rolf whined.

“Ah well, you never know,” Helreca said and stuffed the hand between the ropes holding Rolf on Kil’s back, before she pulled herself into the saddle, pulling the linen cloak over her shoulders once more and setting back towards Riften.

 

* * *

 

Nibbling on another taffy treat, Helreca leafed through her journal while Kilian carried her along the road. If the note she’d copied into it was correct, the bounty she’d earn for Rolf would pay for another week of rent and food in the Bee and Barb. It was comfortable, and around Riften, there was always someone to catch or kill for her. Usually, they sent her to find small-time bandits like Rolf and Jorgen, and that brought in a steady stream of Septims, but there was something off about this arrangement.

Rolf groaned behind her. “Is it gonna take much longer?” he asked.

Helreca shut her journal with a clap and elbowed him sharply. “I could just leave you here and tell the guard to collect you, you know,” she said. “And then you can pray to whoever you like that they actually come fetch you.” Kil snorted as if to agree with her.

“Alright, alright, I’ll shut up.” Rolf sighed.

“Let’s hope you actually do, unlike the last seven times you promised to stop yammering.” Helreca rolled her eyes and pressed her heels into Kil’s flanks.

 

After another good twenty minutes of riding, Riften’s walls emerged from the forest. The sun had almost dropped below the horizon already, and the torches in the guard towers burned bright, promising shelter from the cold and from wildlife. The distant whinnies of the horses in the stables made Kil’s ears perk up again.

Helreca rode past the stables though, right up to the city gates.

“Halt!” Both of the guards posted at the gate drew their swords. That was the second time Helreca had that yelled at her today. “Horses are forbidden inside the city!”

“I bloody well know that, _Sir_ ,” Helreca replied, “I just thought I’d save myself the hassle of dragging this guy here from all the way over there at the stables.” She pointed at Rolf and swung her leg over him as she descended from Kil’s back.

“And who is that?” The guard sheathed his sword and planted himself in front of her in an attempt to intimidate her.  “We don’t want any trouble in Riften, elf.”

Helreca stood ramrod straight, towering over him. “Which is exactly why you’ve posted a bounty notice for this guy.” She fished out her journal and flipped to the page she copied the notice to. “Bandit, on the road towards Black-Briar Lodge? Rolf here and his friend Jorgen attempted to rob me about a third of the way there.”

The guard flipped his visor up, revealing a blond beard and a nose that had been broken at least once before. He stepped out from under her gaze and gave Rolf an appraising look. “She tell the truth?”

Helreca gave Rolf a sharp glare. The last thing she needed was for him to fabricate a tale to get out of this situation and get her arrested somehow.

“Y-Yes, Sir, it is,” Rolf stammered nervously, shifting in his bonds.

The guard nodded. “Alright then. I suppose you gray-skins can be good for something.” He tugged at the rope. “Untie him.” He tensed up, freezing in place. “Shor’s bones, whose hand is this?”

“Oh, that? That’s Jorgen’s. The s’wit died trying to kill me,” Helreca said flippantly, untying the knots holding Rolf in place. “While I go stable my horse, can you get me a writ to give to Anuriel for the bounty? I would greatly appreciate that.” She put on her best disarming smile.

“I’ll have to see the captain about that,” the guard grumbled, turned around and shoved Rolf through the city gates in front of him.

Helreca put the rope on the saddle and clicked her tongue, tugging on Kil’s reins. He gave a short nicker and trotted after her, towards the stables.  
  
  
  
After the stable master had lightened her pouch by ten Septims, Helreca pushed the city gates open, gave the remaining guard a nod, and closed the gate behind her. Save for Maul, whose name probably told anyone who knew it everything he was good for, the streets were empty. People were either drinking in the Bee and Barb or at home at this hour, which suited Helreca just fine. She wasn’t keen on hearing a sales pitch for another wondrous tincture or ludicrously expensive baubles she had no use for.

As Helreca set foot on the canal bridge to the Bee and Barb, the guard who had taken care of Rolf walked out of Mistveil Keep at a brisk pace. Helreca stopped and waited for him.

When he finally reached her, he handed her a small slip of paper, folded in the middle. “There you go,” he said. “Stay out of trouble, elf.”

Helreca rolled her eyes, but she held her tongue. Upsetting the guard — especially one that already didn’t like her — was a surefire way to not get paid. Leaning against the guardrail, she unfolded the paper.

 

_For the capture of the bandit who calls himself Rolf and the elimination of his accomplice,_  
_Helreca Belnon is entitled to a compensation of 350 Septims._  
  
Signed, Torbjorn Mathiason, captain of the Riften guard

 

Helreca smirked and carefully stowed the writ in one of her pouches. Torbjorn was a good man. The bounty letter posted on the board had spoken of 250 Septims. His men might not be the most welcoming, but at least his management was good. She could certainly use the extra money.

Collecting it would have to wait until tomorrow, though. Anuriel would probably not appreciate it if Helreca bothered her now.

 

* * *

  
Muffled chatter and laughter reached Helreca’s ears through the heavy, nail-studded door of the Bee and Barb. She pushed it open, stepped inside. The regulars were all there, as expected — the merchants, who paid her no mind, and the shadier patrons, who seemed to do nothing but keep a watchful eye on the goings on.

Pushing past a group of Nords curiously watching a game of dice, she made her way to the bar. Keerava, the Argonian lady who owned the inn, was busy behind the counter drying off tankards.

“Evening, Keerava,” Helreca greeted. “Still got a free room?”

“I do. Has the hunt been successful?” Keerava’s voice rattled in her throat and when she spoke, the words hissed between her needle-like teeth.

“It has,” Helreca said and slid the usual amount of septims over the counter. “Finding and capturing the bastards was simple enough, but spending a few hours on a horse with one of them is something I could’ve done without.”

Keerava gave a guttural laugh. “I can imagine. Here’s your key.”

With a short nod, Helreca shoved past the gambling Nords again and plodded up the narrow wooden stairs towards the small room that was hers for the night. It wasn’t luxurious by any stretch of the imagination, and calling it claustrophobic wouldn’t have been an overstatement, either. But what it lacked in spaciousness it made up in the comfort of a bed with warm furs and a roof that didn’t leak, and in the end, that’s what mattered most.

Helreca put her bags down and pulled some soap from one of them. She locked the door behind her before she walked back out onto the streets of Riften, her bloody gloves in one hand and the bar of soap in the other.

The sun had dropped below the horizon by now. A few torches lit the streets, making the dark wooden facades seem like they were leaning over her. Maul had moved, but another seedy lady had taken his place, no doubt also a member of the thieves guild. Helreca had seen her in the Bee and Barb before.

Boats gently rocked in the canal, and Helreca squatted down on one of the jettys, just below the bridge. She soaked her gloves in the water, hoping that the sewers expelled their waste somewhere else. When they were sufficiently wet, she laid them on the planks in front of her and scraped some soap onto them with her knife before she rubbed them against each other. She was just about to soak them again when heavy, angry footsteps on the bridge above her made her pause.

“I’m getting really tired of your excuses,” a female voice said, her voice dripping with venom. “When you borrowed money, you said you’d pay it back on time and for double the usual fee.”

Someone stumbled against the guardrail. “I know I did. But how was I supposed to know the shipment would get robbed?”

The female voice responded, low and threatening. “Next time, keep your plans quieter and nothing would have happened to it.”

It took every fiber in Helreca’s being to not storm up there and step in. This was her problem with this city: While Helreca did her best to keep the area safe, people got robbed in broad daylight within the city walls and the guard didn’t lift a finger.

The second voice grew desperate. “What? Are you telling me you robbed it?” he asked, having a hard time to keep his voice steady. “Why? Why are you doing this to me?”

“Look, Shadr. Last warning,” the extortionist said. “Pay up or else. All I care about is the gold.” Her shadow moved away from poor Shadr at the guardrail. “Everything else is your problem.” With that, she vanished into the night.

Helreca sighed and gave her gloves one last scrub. Shadr was still up there. She wrung the water out of her gloves and held them up to the nearest torch. The light wasn’t great, but most of the blood was gone, so Helreca got up and made her way to the Bee and Barb again. When she passed Shadr on the bridge, she fished five Septims out of her pouch.

“Get yourself some mead or whatever you like to drink,” she said. “Seems like you’re having a rough night.”

Shadr stared at the coins in her palm. “Thank you!”

“Don’t mention it.”

Back in her room, Helreca wedged the wet gloves in a drawer to dry.

When she walked back into the taproom, an Imperial with slicked back black hair in a bright yellow mage’s robe waved at her. She grinned.

“Well, look what the Horker dragged in,” the man said and raised his tankard. “Still wandering all over the hold, causing trouble?”

Helreca chuckled. Marcurio might be boastful and a bit of a prick at times, but he always had a story to share, and she could use that after today.

“For the bandits, you mean?” she said, raising an eyebrow, walking past him and getting herself a bowl of stew and a tankard of mead. She sauntered back over to Marcurio’s table and sat herself down. While she dug into her food, Marcurio rested his elbows on the table.

“So, whose day did you ruin today?” he asked.

Helreca swallowed and took a sip of mead before she answered. “Bunch of s’wits named Rolf and Jorgen.” She scooped up another mouthful of stew onto her spoon, but stopped before eating it. “Oh, and probably that one guard. That fellow was awfully annoyed that he had to talk to a Dunmer.” She let out an amused huff and continued eating.

“Oh, I think I know which one. A real charmer, that one,” Marcurio said. “I’ll let you finish eating, then you can tell me about the misadventures of the fearsome brigands Rolf and Jorgen.”

Helreca nodded appreciatively.

“Want to hear what I’ve been up to?” Marcurio took a sip from his tankard and rested his head on his palm.

Marcurio’s stories were often embellished and he liked making himself the hero, but they were entertaining enough.

“Sure,” Helreca said between bites.

“Alright, friend.” Marcurio cleared his throat. “When I last left this marvelous city, I had a client who claimed to be a ‘cookbook author’ and he said he wanted to compile recipes from all over Skyrim.” He peered into his tankard, swirled it around a bit. “Now, you might rightly wonder what the gentleman needed me for. Well, let me tell you.”

 

By the time Marcurio got to the end of his story, Helreca had finished her stew and got refills of mead for both of them. His culinary client had turned out to be utterly incompetent in actually cooking and had expected Marcurio to do it for him. Helreca leant back on her chair and nursed her mead, listening to him with a smirk on her lips.

“Somewhere outside of Riverwood, by this glorious waterfall — seriously, you should’ve seen the view — he decided he’d had enough of my apparent inadequacy.” Marcurio threw his hands in the air, and almost hit a patron who passed behind him in the jaw. After he briefly apologized, he continued. “So, he hands me this pouch of coin and gets on the carriage. After I helped him pack up, mind you. Tells me to leave and that he was going to find someone less useless, and then he takes off.” A wide grin spread across his face, and he twirled the small patch of beard under his bottom lip between his fingers.

“Of course I followed him for a bit and what do you know — not even an hour later he gets jumped by a bunch of bandits.”

Helreca nodded. “Of course.”

“Right? Rather unpleasant, that lot was.” Marcurio’s voice dropped low. “But unsurprisingly they were no match for me and a few well-placed spells.”

Helreca raised an eyebrow. “How many were there again?”

“Three or four, maybe even five,” Marcurio said, scratching his head, “but it doesn’t matter that much, does it? With my arcane powers…”

“Naturally.”

“But enough about me, how’s business been for you?” He ran a hand through his hair and leant forwards.

With a low sigh, Helreca set her tankard down. “Not much to tell, really. Pair of idiots pilfered Imperial uniforms from some unfortunate dead soldiers and tried extorting people for a ‘road fee.’” She shrugged. “I tried playing into it, but Jorgen got impatient and attacked me, so I killed him.”

Marcurio let out a low whistle.

“Well, Rolf was fairly cooperative after that.” Helreca chuckled, and Marcurio had to grin, too.

“I can imagine!”

Helreca took the last swig of her mead and pushed her chair back as she got up. “I think I’ll catch some sleep. Goodnight, ser.”

Giving a nod, Marcurio raised his tankard.

 

* * *

  
The wind didn’t howl around the houses, the ceiling didn’t drip water on her, the floorboards didn’t creak and the furs were warm and cozy, but Helreca still tossed and turned. For a woman of her height, the bed might’ve been slightly too short, but that wasn’t the problem.

She stared at the strip of flickering candlelight that seeped through the gap under the door, listened to the roaring laughter coming from the taproom. Occasionally, a shadow disturbed the light and someone stomped drunkenly down the hallway. 

The noise from the taproom quietened down, and the light flickering under the door became weaker.

And then the walls moved. Like the mass of critters skittering away when one lifted a rock, the wooden slats writhed and squirmed, over and under and between themselves.

As if it had a mind of its own, the wriggling chaos formed a face with glowing yellow eyes, and it approached her. She couldn’t move, couldn’t escape. There was nothing she could do as the face contorted and opened its mouth, revealing sharp fangs. She watched in horror as the face came closer, a scream caught in her throat but was unable to escape as the jaws got impossibly wider and with a quick snap and an awful crunch, closed around her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  
> 
>  
> 
> Uh, hi! I started playing Skyrim again, got hit with a truckload of plot bunnies, and now this exists. Comments are always appreciated!
> 
> Word of warning though, while I have most of it planned out, I can't guarantee timely updates whatsoever, between my other two WIPs and university.


	2. Chapter 2

Helreca’s eyes snapped open. She was drenched in sweat. For a moment, she didn’t know where she was, and even when she spotted her sword leaning against the bedside table in its scabbard, she couldn’t fully relax. Whatever that had been, it’d felt entirely too real. She cupped her face in her hands and rubbed her eyes. As soon as she closed them, the image of that horrifying face appeared again. The memory of the sickening sound the jaws had made as they closed made the tiny hairs on her neck stand on end.

With a sigh, Helreca swung her legs out of bed. Judging from the light pouring in under the door, it was already morning, even though the dream had only felt like minutes, at most. She got up and shook her head, tried to blink the memory away, to shake off the unease. The shaking only made a dull pain throb through her head, though. Maybe some breakfast and a bath would help. After she’d blearily fought the buttons on her shirt, she made her way downstairs.

Talen-Jei, a tall Argonian with an assortment of short horns and feathers lining the various ridges on his head, looked up from the tub of dirty dishes when she stepped into the taproom.

“Can I offer you anything?” he asked, tilting his head. “You don’t look well.”

Helreca groaned, stretching her arms out in front of her before she pulled them sideways. “Before you ask, the room is fine. Just had a bad dream, is all.” As she sat down on a stool at his counter, her brows drew together. “Some bread and water would be nice. What time is it?”

“Just after noon,” Talen-Jei said and vanished into the kitchen.

“That explains the headache.” Helreca rubbed her temples and turned on her seat, surveying the room. There was no use wondering why she’d slept so long.

At one of the tables, a short Breton woman sat opposite an equally short Bosmer man, both of them staring at the burly redheaded Nord standing next to them, their cheeks flushed. Helreca couldn’t stand him — Brynjolf, that was his name — ever since he’d tried recruiting her for one of his schemes.  How he’d gotten it in his head she of all people didn’t do ‘honest’ work remained a mystery. An eye-roll and an annoyed glare had shut him up, luckily.

The stew in the Breton’s bowl must’ve gotten cold ages ago, but all she had eyes for was Brynjolf.  She twirled one of her long, dark braids around her finger now, listening to him talk.

Helreca sighed quietly. He didn’t look bad, but how anyone could be attracted to him was beyond her.

With a wooden clatter, Talen-Jei slid a wooden plate over to her and placed a pitcher of water next to it. “Here you go.” He’d even included some slices of sausage and a wedge of cheese.

“What do I owe?” Helreca asked, reaching for her coin purse.

Giving a dismissive snort, Talen-Jei slung his towel over his shoulder. “Nothing. You look like you had a rough night.”

“Appreciate it.” As she raised the pitcher to her mouth, Helreca gave him a nod.

Her mind wandered back to the trio dallying around at the table behind her. Of all the blokes in Riften, why him? She shrugged and took a bite of bread with cheese. That sort of thing wasn’t for her anyway. She’d never met anyone she’d want to do that with, and knowing herself, she’d probably not be very good at it, so it was for the best. Every once in a while though, she’d met a lady who’d left her in awe, but she’d never acted on that. No, her life suited her just fine as it was; there was no need to overcomplicate it.

When the last piece of bread and the last drop of water were gone, Helreca pushed her stool back and got up. She had things to tend to, after all. A writ that entitled her to a sum of coin didn’t buy her anything, after all. After she’d fetched some toiletries from her room and locked it again behind her, she stepped outside and into the bustling market. As usual, there was a small crowd around Marise Aravel’s stand — everyone wondered how she kept her meat fresh, especially with the sun trying its best to make man and mer forget how bitterly cold the last night had been. Helreca hadn’t pegged her for a mage, but even with her own admittedly limited knowledge, it wasn’t hard to figure out how to keep something cold for a while. Most people browsed the displays of the produce vendors that came into town every week.

Snaking her way through the crowd, Helreca made it across the canal to the bathhouse. Wedged between Riftweald Manor and the Temple of Mara, it wasn’t particularly imposing — it didn’t have much space to work with, after all. Its walls and roof were well tended to, though. When Helreca pushed the heavy doors open, a wall of moisture hit her in the face; the air was thick enough to cut it with a knife. Immersed in the cheap novelette she was reading, the old lady at the entrance barely even gave her a nod as Helreca placed five Septims in the worn metal plate on the counter with a quiet clink.

As tempting as it was, Helreca couldn’t allow herself to really soak and forget time. She still had to collect the money from yesterday’s bounty, and she’d do well to pick up another one as soon as possible. Today’s visit to the bathhouse was strictly utilitarian. Unfortunately, a lot of mercenaries showed up to the Jarl’s court caked in dirt and grime, so it wasn’t unheard of, but Helreca didn’t want to add to their stench. Still, it was a shame, because now she had the entire bath for herself. Usually, she had to bend her legs a little to not get uncomfortably close to another patron, but now, she could stretch out in the hot water. Miffed about the missed opportunity, Helreca scrubbed and rinsed herself off.

Her clothes could use a wash too, but that couldn’t be helped now. After she’d put her toiletries away and fetched the writ from Captain Mathiason, she climbed the steps to Mistveil Keep. The guards posted on both sides of the massive studded door eyed her up as she passed, but kept leaning on their spears.

With a deep metallic click, the door fell shut behind her. Nobody in the hall turned to look who’d entered, except maybe for the guards, but that was expected of them. A well-fed fire crackled amidst a half-circle of tables and threw shadows across the hunting trophies and banners mounted on the walls. Finding Anuriel didn’t take long. She sat at the head end of the table, her head of white hair tied up in two buns poking out over a massive ledger. With her chin resting in her palm and a crease on her forehead, she flipped through its pages. The Jarl’s throne at the far end of the hall was empty, though.

“Greetings, sera,” Helreca said, unfolding the writ Captain Mathiason had given her. “I’ve come to collect a bounty.”

Anuriel jumped in her seat. “Hm? Oh, yes, hello.” Her voice was smooth, but there was a pang of worry in it. “Is that from the Captain?” she asked, pointing at the piece of paper in Helreca’s hand.

“It is.” Helreca handed it to her. “Brought in one of the bandits on the way to Black-Briar Lodge. The other one was… less fortunate, let’s say.”

Anuriel’s crimson eyes flew across the paper, and she gave a nod. “Very well. You’ve done us a great service. Please wait a moment while I go fetch your compensation.” With that, she got up from her bench and vanished through the door behind the Jarl’s throne.

Being alone in the Keep had a rather eerie quality. The guards still stood next to the door as if they’d grown roots. What did they busy themselves with? It wasn’t like they could play a round of cards to pass the time or have a leisurely chat when it was expected of them to be quiet and vigilant. Helreca winced inwardly at the thought of being in their shoes.

With a loud creak, a door on one side of the room flew open. Hastily taking off her dark blue hood, the court wizard Wylandriah ran a hand through her long white hair. “That’s another failed attempt — I knew I shouldn’t have trusted that trader,” she said, giving a sigh. “Oh! You’re here! But what for? A delivery?”

Helreca opened her mouth to respond, but Wylandriah cut her off. From the corner of her eye, she saw one of the guards roll her eyes.

“No, that was last week. Thank you, the spider venom worked very well.” A smile spread across her lips.

Helreca gave her a slight bow. “You’re very welcome, sera.”

“Actually, I might need to employ your services once more,” Wylandriah said, rubbing her chin.

At a smart pace, Anuriel emerged from the door she had vanished behind, a hefty pouch of coin in her hand. “I was about to tell her the same thing,” she said, holding the pouch out towards Helreca, who promptly took it from her.

“That’s alright, my request can wait,” said Wylandriah, and pursed her lips to one side. “I’ll get to cleaning up the mess I just made.”

Helreca weighed the pouch of coin in her hand. It was heavy enough that she wouldn’t bother counting. “You have a mission for me?”

Anuriel nodded. “It’s a job for more than one person though, no matter how skilled that one person is.”

“I’ll figure something out.” Helreca shrugged. “What do you need done?”

A crease appeared on Anuriel’s forehead, and she lowered her voice. “We have received a missive from Heartwood Mill — Leifnarr’s son Gralnach went missing a few days ago. There have been reports of other travelers meeting the same fate, but our patrols didn’t find anything out of the ordinary.”

“It’s not a werewolf though, is it?” Tensing up, Helreca raised her eyebrows. She had seen the aftermath of a werewolf attack, and she had no desire to get between such a creature and their prey. Others may be foolish enough to take them on, but not her. Another farmer had tried hiring her to kill one before, but she’d called him insane and walked off, getting showered in insults. She didn’t care about the farmer’s coin; staying alive was more important.

“Gods, no.” Anuriel exhaled sharply through her nose. “There was no attack, and Gralnach never ventures far, as his parents assured us.”

“So, you want me to find Gralnach?”

“Yes, as quickly as possible. Without him, the mill can’t complete the next shipment of wood on time.” Shoving the ledger on the table aside, Anuriel picked up a folded piece of paper. “This lists the terms. You’ll be well rewarded.”

Helreca gave it a brief scan. “Doesn’t say anything about bringing him back alive. That’s optimistic,” she said with a wry smile. “Alright, I’ll see if I can get there by nightfall.”

“Good luck, and be quick.”

“I’ll do my best not to disappoint, sera,” Helreca said and turned towards the door.

* * *

As she reached the Bee and Barb again, Helreca found exactly whom she had in mind for the job. Marcurio stood in front of the notice board hanging on the wall next to the entrance, twirling his beard between his fingers. With his brows drawn together, he seemed disappointed with the current crop of errands the townsfolk were willing to pay for.

“Good day, ser,” Helreca greeted. “Looking for work?”

With a smile, Marcurio turned towards her. “Oh, definitely. It’s just — a wizard of my caliber is frankly overqualified for the sort of thing people seem to need help with. Don’t tell me you’ve managed to dig something up?”

Raising an eyebrow, Helreca fished the folded paper out of her pocket. “As a matter of fact, I have. We’d have to get going right now and you’d have to share the money with me.”

“What are we waiting for, then?” Marcurio asked, spreading his arms.

 

 

After Helreca had packed up and returned her room key to Keerava, the two of them met up at the stables. The sun had passed its zenith already; if they wanted to make it to Heartwood Mill by sundown, they’d have to hurry. With the saddlebags checked one last time, Helreca and Marcurio rode out of the stables and straight into the woods.

“They should at least make a path around the city wall if they’re banning horses inside,” Marcurio said, shaking his head. “Who knows what you could step into here.”

Usually, Kilian held his head up high, but now, it was low to the ground, and he moved cautiously across the mossy ground.

Helreca gave an amused huff. “Says the man who would make a horse jump all over Red Mountain if he had to.” After a pause, she added, “but, you have a point.”

When they had rounded the city and reached the road once again, Helreca pressed her heels into Kilian’s flanks. Giving a determined snort, the massive gelding accelerated past Marcurio’s black mare to a quick canter.

“Come on, we want to get there today!” Helreca yelled back over her shoulder.

The clatter of the two horses’ hooves on the cobblestone reverberated between the trees for a good while until they made their first stop. Riding like this for too long at a stretch would’ve been cruel for the horses; they deserved their break. A grassy waterfront just before a bridge would do just fine.

While the horses were drinking, Helreca read across the paper Anuriel had given her once more. Marcurio leant against the tree next to her.

“So, when are you going to tell me what we’re supposed to be doing?” he asked, a smirk on his face.

Oh, right.

“Sorry, ser, it slipped my mind,” Helreca said, avoiding his gaze, “I’m not used to working with someone else.”

Marcurio gave a chuckle. “It’s quite alright.”

“No, it was rather unprofessional of me, and I do apologize. Communication is important for jobs like this.” Straightening up, Helreca tugged on her gambeson. “Let me fill you in.”

After she’d explained the situation to Marcurio, he twirled his beard between his fingers again.

“So there weren’t any signs of a struggle?” he asked. “Do you think he simply ran away from the ordinary farm life?”

“Wouldn’t make sense with the other disappearances in the area though.” Throwing a cursory glance at the sun, Helreca pushed away from the tree she leant on and grabbed Kilian’s reins. “We’ll find out when we get there.”

With that, she climbed into the saddle again. They had another few hours of riding ahead of them, and the sun just barely hung over the mountains in the west now. As it got darker, their destination came closer, but after riding at this pace for so long, both the horses and their riders grew tired and hungry.

“You know, traveling with that culinary pen-pusher had its perks,” Marcurio yelled from the back, “I never had to worry about food!”

Helreca shook her head, but a smile tugged on the corners of her lips. “That’s why you always bring some provisions,” she yelled over her shoulder, earning a short guffaw.

Even though experience told her otherwise, she wanted to stay optimistic. Farmers were usually fairly hospitable, so maybe they’d even have a solid roof over their heads for the night. She knew better than to raise expectations, though.

* * *

The creak of a water mill echoed far down the road. In the middle of a clearing on the bank of the Treva River, the humble houses of Heartwood Mill were silhouetted against the sunset. A warm glow shone through the main house’s windows.

When Helreca and Marcurio approached on their horses, a man came out of the main house and approached them.

“Evening,” he said, “what brings you two here? Bit late to buy wood, eh?”

Helreca descended from Kilian’s back before she answered. “Hello, ser. We were sent by Jarl Law-Giver to investigate your son’s disappearance.” With Kil’s reins in her hand, she gave a short bow. “My name is Helreca Belnon, and that’s Marcurio.”

It was hard to see in the fading daylight, but a wry smile played on the man’s lips. He shook both of their hands with a firm grip. His hands were rough from years of work. “Leifnarr.”

Marcurio gave a snort. “What’s with that introduction, Belnon?” He put a hand on his chest. “I am a master of the arcane, and I guess she’s pretty good with a sword.”

Letting out a sigh, Helreca rolled her eyes.

“Master wizard, you look pretty beat. Rode all the way from Riften, eh?” Leifnarr said and gestured at the main house. “’S not much, but you’re welcome to stay while you’re investigating.”

Helreca bowed her head to him again. “That’s kind of you. Where can we tether up the horses?”

After he’d looked around, Leifnarr pointed at a tree opposite the main house, next to the mill itself. “When you’re done, come in, and I’ll introduce you to my wife and her stew.”

While she took her saddlebags off Kilian’s back, Helreca let her eyes wander across the mill. There were no signs of a struggle as far as she could tell in the dark — everything seemed perfectly in order. She’d have to take a more thorough look tomorrow.

“He seemed awfully cheerful for someone whose only son is missing, don’t you think?” Marcurio talked low, so as not to be audible from far away.

Helreca gave an indecisive hum. “Might just be his way of coping. We’ll find out more tomorrow.”

“True,” Marcurio said. “Are you coming? My stomach can’t wait to get introduced to his wife’s stew.”

As they approached the main house, Helreca couldn’t help but chuckle.

  
  
  


“Come in, have a seat!” With her graying blonde hair in a headscarf and a face marked by time and hard work, Leifnarr’s wife looked both friendly and stern. “We have some spare furs for the night, too.” She swiftly filled two wooden bowls with stew and ripped off two pieces of bread for them.

Trying to occupy as little space as possible in a foreigner’s home, Helreca put her belongings down. Marcurio, however, just dropped his haphazardly on one of the furs Leifnarr or his wife had laid out. Helreca raised her eyebrows at him, but neither Leifnarr nor his wife seemed to mind.

The house wasn’t particularly spacious, but its walls of interlocking logs kept warmth in and cold out. In the middle of one of the long walls, a fire crackled underneath a hefty mantelpiece, and the shelf next to it was full of kitchen supplies. A ladder led up into the rafters. Aside from the worn dinner table, the furniture in the room consisted of two beds — a large one and a smaller one — a dresser and the furs Grosta had laid out for them.

“Jarl Law-Giver sent us to investigate your son’s disappearance, sera,” Helreca said as she sat. “My name’s Helreca Belnon, and that’s the great wizard Marcurio.” She gave Marcurio a sharp glance.

“Oho, a great wizard? Well, I’m the mighty lumberjack Grosta.” There was a glint in her eye as she said that. “You’ve met my good-for-nothing husband.”

The conversation hitched for a moment, but Marcurio saved it from drifting too far into awkward territory. “Well, he’s good for welcoming people, so that’s one thing. Thank you for your hospitality, by the way.”

When Helreca took a spoonful of stew, Leifnarr’s eyes widened in surprise.

“So you people eat a good stew too, huh?” he said. His demeanor gave no indication whatsoever that he was joking.

Helreca swallowed and blinked at him across the table. “My people have discovered the concept of cooking meat and vegetables in a pot together a while back already, ser, yes.”

Leifnarr quickly raised his palms and looked down, while Grosta glared daggers at him.

“Grosta, your stew’s delicious,” Marcurio said, “just what I needed.” He paused, taking a bit of his bread to wipe the rim of his plate clean. “We’ll probably have to ask you a few uncomfortable questions about your son and look through his belongings tomorrow if that’s alright with you.”

Grosta scoffed. “That’s already more than the pair of uniformed jokers did when they came around.” She crossed her arms in front of her chest. “I’m honestly surprised Jarl Law-Giver actually seems to take this seriously now.”

“You can’t say that in front of them!” Leifnarr pressed out between his teeth.

With a smirk on her lips, Helreca put her spoon down. “The Jarl pays us to find missing people, not punish valid criticism, rest assured. If anything, it’s rather interesting to hear what people think of their lords — especially to me as a foreigner.” Making eye contact with Leifnarr, she tried to make her smile as disarming as possible, which didn’t get easier when he shrunk in his seat.

Grosta laughed out loud. “I like you. You don’t fuck around.”

As she took another spoonful of stew, Helreca shrugged.

“Oh, Belnon, you haven’t been here for that long, have you?” Marcurio asked, leaning back in his chair as he often did when he was about to tell a story. “There are some things about our dear Jarl you might like to hear.”

Helreca leant one elbow on the table. “Do tell.”

* * *

As the evening came to an end and the conversation made way for stifled yawns, the decision was made to turn in for the night. The faint glimmer of what was left of the fire threw long, fuzzy shadows over everything. With her furs pulled up to her chin, Helreca stared at the ceiling. Next to her, Marcurio snored so loud, one could’ve mistaken him for the mill outside. She couldn’t see them now, but when she had killed the lights, Leifnarr and Grosta had stood out as two distinct humps on their bed.

While she was probably the last person who’d know about good parenting, Helreca couldn’t imagine Gralnach had a happy home life with his parents bickering like this. They slept in the same bed, but almost as far apart from each other as possible. Maybe that was the reason he ran away? They’d find out soon enough. For now, Helreca was happy to be able to sleep inside. She didn’t mind tents, but being under a solid roof had its perks. Right now, it was peaceful, too — save for the slight tension in the air. Whether it was because of Gralnach’s disappearance or not, Grosta and Leifnarr didn’t seem to have a flourishing marriage. Helreca’s and Marcurio’s arrival probably added to the unease.

Helreca forced her eyes shut and rolled over to one side, curled up. If she wanted to help these people get their son back, she needed to be rested. The memory of last night’s dream pushed itself back into her mind. Another one of those was the last thing she could use now. No matter how many times she remembered them, those yellow eyes still had the same unsettling quality. She squirmed underneath her covers, and slowly but surely, the rattle of the waterwheel lulled her into sleep.

  
  
  
  


She stood on the same grassy waterfront they’d stopped at today. The sun hung high in the sky, and a gentle breeze swayed the trees around her, made little waves ripple across the water. Kilian was gone. Marcurio was gone. Helreca tried to move, but her limbs wouldn’t budge, as if she was rooted to the spot. As panic rose inside her, all the light in the sky slowly drained away towards the west. Barely bright enough to illuminate the ground she stood on, the sun became little more than a faint speck.

From beyond the Throat of the World, a gangly silhouette rose, even darker than the starless sky.

It opened its eyes. They glowed yellow, brighter than the sun now, fixing her in a piercing gaze.

Helreca trembled in her boots, and she thought her legs would give out under her. They didn’t.

Once again, she could only watch with horror as the creature opened its fanged mouth. With a deafening, hollow thud, its jaws closed around the sun—

Helreca threw her furs off and found herself sitting bolt-upright again. Her hand flew to the handle of her sword before she pinched the bridge of her nose. As if one nightmare hadn’t been enough already, no, now she’d had two in a row! With a recurring theme, to boot! Careful not to wake the others up, she slipped on her boots, grabbed her waterskin, and stepped outside.

The cold didn’t do anything to help her stop shivering. The sight of Masser and Secunda amidst the sea of stars in the night sky was comforting, though, in a way. Leaning against the house’s rough wall, Helreca drank deeply from her waterskin. She looked out across Lake Honrich, watched the moonlight bounce off its calm surface, just as she’d done in her dream. With a sigh, she let her head fall back against the wood. The last time she’d had a nightmare had been when she was little. A few nightmare-less decades stretched out between then and now, and worryingly enough, these ones shared a similar theme.

No matter how she looked at it, this wasn’t normal, and if she was religious, she would’ve started praying right about now.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An update!
> 
> Finals are over so I have a bit of time for writing again.


	3. Chapter 3

No matter how long she kept her eyes shut, Helreca couldn’t go back to sleep, but not for lack of trying. After she’d turned over for what felt like the fiftieth time, she got dressed and sat down outside to not wake the others up with her antics. It wasn’t too windy, so she took her journal out. Maybe writing them down would help make sense of the nightmares. She started a new page for her notes.

Soon, the parchment was scribbled full of details and sketches, but she still had no clue what the dreams wanted to tell her. Was she supposed to look out for some strange shape-shifting monster with yellow eyes and fangs that eats celestial bodies and people? Was it hunting her?

All she knew was it terrified her and kept her from sleeping properly. At least she didn’t feel sick. With a deep sigh, she flipped to another new page. Collecting notes on the current contract seemed like a more productive thing to do, but right now, she didn’t have much to write down on that. She could think of some questions to ask, though.

 

 

Morning came, but by the time it did, Helreca had searched the mill’s immediate surroundings twice over in what little light she had. There still wasn’t any activity inside, and she’d run out of things to busy herself with. It was bright enough to see without a torch now, so she got up for another round. Couldn’t hurt.

Judging from the lack of toys in the house, Gralnach must’ve grown out of them already. While Grosta and Leifnarr certainly weren’t wealthy, even they would give a child something to play with. He must almost be a man already, and that meant they put him to work. Helreca absentmindedly fiddled with the braid in her red hair as she walked over to the mill. Maybe there was something she’d missed at the boy’s workplace.

The wide wooden slats that covered the ramp up to the saw blade didn’t offer much in terms of secrecy, and neither did the roof. Everything was in plain sight, and if something was loose, it’d be noticed right away. At Gralnach’s age, most young people wanted some privacy from their parents. The house certainly didn’t offer any.

As she leant on one of the mill’s roof supports and looked down at the waterwheel, Helreca let out a sigh of frustration. Of course, the crawlspace! Somehow, the wheel had to make the saw move, and somehow, you had to be able to work on it if it broke. And since the crawlspace was probably not all that spacious, sending Gralnach down there instead of Leifnarr didn’t seem too far fetched. After she found the hatch unlocked, Helreca paused to concentrate, sending a wave of warmth down her left arm. She squeezed and released the energy pooling in her palm, and the damp, pitch-black darkness under the mill was ablaze with brilliant white light.

Inside a massive, reinforced frame, a gear turned on the waterwheel’s axis and operated a well-greased linkage. Down here, the mechanism’s racket was deafening. How the mill worked didn’t matter, though. The little nooks and crannies that even Helreca’s magelight couldn’t illuminate properly were much more interesting. On the side facing the waters of the Treva river, rows and rows of sacks filled with what must be sand were stacked against the wall, probably in an effort to keep the river from eroding the walls and underwash their foundations. Thankfully it was too damp down here for spiders, otherwise Helreca probably would’ve had to wipe several of their webs from her face by now.

The sacks were filled to the brim and neatly bound shut at the top. Except for one. In the far corner, one of the sacks didn’t look quite as plump as the others, and the knot at the top seemed like it’d unravel with the lightest pull. When Helreca tugged on it, it practically fell apart, as if it’d been hastily and haphazardly tied shut again. A bright, glassy rattle came from within.

Helreca reached in, and pulled out a fistful of small, red phials that exuded a biting stench. Just breathing in the fumes almost made her dizzy.

Skooma, no doubt about it.

Holding the phials as far away as she could, Helreca snorted and coughed in an attempt to get the smell out of her nose. She’d seen skooma before, and even in the dingiest of dens she’d had to drag someone out of, the phials had been at least somewhat clean. These looked like they’d been dragged halfway through oblivion, and there was sticky, dark red residue around their necks.

Leifnarr and Grosta didn’t behave like they had a drug problem, and an addict using the mill’s crawlspace as a hideout seemed unlikely, too. Emerging from underneath the mill, Helreca pinched the bridge of her nose. This wouldn’t be easy to break to them.

  
  
  


Helreca was sitting on the mill’s ramp with her legs crossed at the ankles, writing down her latest findings, when the house’s door finally opened. With her hair in a headscarf, Grosta came out. She looked left and right before she spotted Helreca. Still sleepy, she moved stiffly as she walked over.

“Morning,” she said, “you’re up early.”

Helreca nodded. “Morning, sera. Couldn’t sleep, didn’t want to wake anyone up.” She closed her notebook and pressed the cork into her inkwell again.

“Rough.” Grosta gave her a concerned look. “Hope it wasn’t my fault, though.”

“It wasn’t, I assure you,” Helreca said and looked out across the river. Quietly, she added, “Got a nightmare.”

Walking up the mill’s ramp, Grosta shook her head. “Agh, that’s just the worst. I’m sorry that happened to you.” The way she said that reminded Helreca of her mother, even though Helreca was at least a decade older than her.

“I’ll be fine.” Helreca scoffed. The phials she found in the crawlspace came back to mind, and how she found them. “Since I was already up, I looked around the place a bit. I hope you don’t mind.”

“I don’t. Got nothing to hide out here anyway,” Grosta said. “Your colleague just got up, too. I ought to get to work, else nothing gets done today.”

Helreca gave an appreciative nod and rose to her feet. “I’d like to ask you and your husband some questions about Gralnach in a bit. Do you think you’ll have a moment to spare?”

“Of course.”

  
  
  


When Helreca entered the house, Leifnarr took the door handle from her and shoved outside past her without a word. She looked after him with her brows in her hairline until the door fell shut.

“What was that all about?” she asked, turning to Marcurio.

At the table, Marcurio gave a sigh. “And a good morning to you too, Belnon,” he said. “Don’t know. I asked him how a typical day looked for him, he asked how I meant that, and I listed a bunch of things I thought he’d do. You know, cutting down trees, cutting the branches off, looking after the mill, that sort of thing.”

“And he just stormed out? Strange reaction, that.” Helreca crossed her arms and knitted her brows. “Wait, did he storm out after the bit about looking after the mill specifically?”

“Could be, why?”

“Because if he did, then I think I know why,” Helreca said.

Marcurio got up and pushed his chair under the table. “Do you?”

“Maybe. Let’s check out the kid’s things first, then I’ll tell you what I found while you were asleep.” Helreca stowed away her journal and walked over to Gralnach’s corner of the room.

Marcurio followed. “Was the idea of sleeping next to me so unpleasant to you?” he asked with a smirk.

“No,” Helreca deadpanned. “I had a nightmare and decided I didn’t want to wake everyone up by making a racket. You do snore like a horker with a sore throat, though.”

“No one’s ever complained before,” Marcurio said and scoffed.

“Well, now you’re aware.” Hunkering down in front of Gralnach’s bed, Helreca looked up at him. “Let’s have a look, shall we?”

There was nothing under the bed save for an old pair of shoes that had seen better days and a dusty wooden sword. Nothing stuck between the furs on the bed, either. Marcurio set about foraging through the boy’s dresser, but when Helreca gave him a questioning look, he only shook his head and shoved the drawer back shut.

“Nothing?” she asked.

Marcurio let out a deep sigh. “Nothing. Just some clothes and a jar with one measly coin in it.”

“A jar with a coin?” The question came out of Helreca’s mouth more like an exclamation. She quickly jumped to her feet. “I think I might have an idea what happened.” She pulled one of the empty skooma vials out. “Look.”

“Where did you get this?” Marcurio stared at her incredulously.

Rolling her eyes, Helreca threw the phial into the air and caught it again. “Don’t look at me like that. It was in the mill’s crawlspace, with many more,” she said. “My guess is that Gralnach got a taste from a traveling dealer, got addicted and spent his entire savings on more. Maybe Leifnarr even knew about it but couldn’t do anything.”

Marcurio nervously scratched the back of his head. “Well, that is certainly a… development. But we aren’t done with this, are we?”

“No.” Helreca slowly shook her head. “The least we can do is to find him, maybe he’s still alive. Get his parents some closure. Wouldn’t bet on that, though.”

“Alright. Well, we should probably talk to his parents, then, huh?”

  
  
  


When Helreca placed the phial in the middle of the table after she’d asked Grosta and Leifnarr to sit down, the looks on their faces spoke volumes. Leifnarr sunk into his chair and avoided eye contact while Grosta’s face flushed red and her eyes glinted with anger.

“Where did you find this?” She pressed the question out between her gritted teeth. “What are you trying to say?”

Helreca cleared her throat before she spoke. “I think your son might have become addicted to skooma, sera,” she said quietly. A muscle in Grosta’s face twitched, and Helreca raised her hands calmingly. “I’m not trying to insult your parenting. Drug peddlers are quite good at coercing people to try, and skooma is extremely addictive. Your son is young, inexperienced. There is no shame in falling victim to predatory tactics like that.”

Grosta opened her mouth, but she closed it again and breathed deeply. “We didn’t raise him like this,” she said. “Did we, Leifnarr?” Her tone was sharp and pointed, like a dagger.

It took a moment before Leifnarr answered. His jaw tightened when he returned her look. “We didn’t.”

“You knew about this,” Grosta said, leaning onto the table with both arms. Her eyes bored holes into Leifnarr’s forehead.

Neither Marcurio nor Helreca dared to interrupt the tense silence that spread in the room.

Chewing on his bottom lip, Leifnarr closed his eyes and let his chin drop onto his chest. “I did. Tried to make him stop,” he said and buried his face in his hands. “Told him it’d ruin him. Guess I was right.” When he looked up at Grosta again, tears welled up in his eyes.

Slowly, Grosta straightened, her arms dangling limp from her shoulders. “Why didn’t you say anything?” she asked quietly. “Why, Leif?”

Leifnarr’s brows drew together, and his gaze hardened, even though the tears already ran down his cheeks. “You already call me useless and good-for-nothing all the time. The boy sure as fuck didn’t need that.” He let his forearms drop on the table, making the bowls on top of it clatter.

Almost unnoticeably, Helreca flinched. She threw a quick glance at the door, wanted out. This conversation was entirely too private for her to be a part of it, and the longer she silently stood there and observed it, the more uncomfortable it felt to witness.

Grosta caught it. “Is your work done now?” she demanded, with her eyes darting back and forth between Helreca and Marcurio. Her voice wavered, and when she blinked, tears ran down her cheeks, too. “’Your son was a drug addict and is probably rotting in a ditch somewhere now, goodbye’?”

“No.” Helreca pocketed the dirty phial again, took a deep breath and gave Marcurio a look.

He nodded once, and with determination.

“No, we were hired to find your son, and that’s what we’re going to do, sera,” Helreca said and turned to Leifnarr. “Did he say where he got the drugs, ser?”

Leifnarr shook his head. “He said something about a trader on the road to Ivarstead, if I remember right. Didn’t say much about them.”

“Alright, then that is where we’ll continue the investigation.” Pushing her chair back, Helreca got up.

Marcurio followed her example. “If we don’t manage to get your son back, you’ll at least know what happened to him.” When Helreca raised her brows at him, he paused for a moment and added, “Not that that’d make it any better, but— “

* * *

Before they’d left Heartwood Mill behind, Helreca had quickly scribbled down her findings into her journal, along with a brief description of Gralnach’s appearance. She looked at it now with her journal in one hand in Kil’s reins in the other, so she wouldn’t miss it if she ran into the boy by chance. Marcurio was oddly quiet since the conversation at the Mill. Not that Helreca would mind, but it was uncharacteristic for him. He always had something to joke or complain about.

They covered a few miles before he spoke again. “This turned out to be a lot darker than I was expecting,” he said, “I never know what to say.”

Helreca scoffed. “Sometimes there isn’t a right thing to say. Gotta try to say the least tactless thing you can.”

“True, true.” He glanced at her journal. “So what’s your plan, friend? Hoping we’ll run into the bastard that got the kid hooked? Or a guard that saw him?”

“Not quite,” Helreca said and stowed the journal away. “Those types can spot a bounty hunter or a guard a mile away. A courier or a Khajiit caravan would be great, though.”

Marcurio shuffled around in his saddle uncomfortably. “Think it was one of the Khajiit traders that sold him the drugs?”

“Nah, but they could have some information. They get around, and they don’t shy away from drugs.” Pulling out a taffy treat, Helreca held it out towards Marcurio. “Want one?”

  
  
  


When the sun almost stood at its peak, they’d asked every single person they’d come across on the road if they’d seen anyone offering ‘something to relax’ or suspicious substances, to no avail. Hours spent in the saddle the day before and now showed their effect. If Helreca’s memory of the area served her correctly, they’d made it about halfway to Ivarstead as they stopped for the first time. There was a crossroads a bit farther down the road, almost visible from the crest they’d stopped on.

“Where do you think we should look, ser?” Helreca asked. “Ride into town or the other way on the off chance we’ll run into someone?”

Throwing a rock into the woods, Marcurio scoffed. “If the off chance includes running into a fort chock full of brigands, I’d rather go for the town. Can’t very well find a missing son if we’re dead, can we?”

“Point.” Stretching her legs, Helreca sat on the stone wall on the side of the road. “The guard there might have a better idea of who or what is in the forests around here than the Riften guard does, too.”

  
  
  


After they’d rested for a while, Helreca was just about to swing her leg over Kilian’s back when the road that had been so empty before came alive at the bottom of the hill. At least a dozen people made their way towards them, some armored, some leading cart horses behind them. The clatter of their belongings and armor sounded through the forest.

Dropping from the stirrups to the floor again, Helreca pointed down the road and tugged on Kilian’s reins. “Looks like we’re in luck,” she said.

Kilian gave a snort and trotted after her.

It didn’t take long before they reached the caravan — it was made up entirely of Khajiit. As Helreca and Marcurio approached, those in armor stepped in front of the others, with the exception of one in a fine yellow dress. Her fur was dark with black stripes, and she fixated them with bright green eyes.

“Greetings,” she said, her pupils narrowing into slits. “Are you perhaps interested in the wares this one has to offer?” One of her ears turned to her back as she gestured behind her.

With a brief smile, Helreca bowed slightly. “Hello, sera. I was wondering if you were willing to share your knowledge of the local skooma trade,” she said.

The trader’s whiskers twitched and she set her ears back halfway as she crossed her arms. “Isn’t it a bit rude to assume this one has knowledge of such things?” she asked in a dry tone, only to blink slowly and scoff in the next moment. “To what end do you wish to know? It might cost you.”

“A boy on a nearby farm went missing, and we found these.” Helreca pulled the phial out and presented it. “Any idea where he might’ve gotten it?”

Gingerly taking the phial from Helreca’s hand, the trader gave it a careful sniff.

She coughed and sneezed, holding the phial as far away from her as possible. Her pupils widened in fear. “This one knows where this came from. You should avoid that place.”

When Marcurio stepped past Helreca, the trader’s guards tensed up. Their ears laid flat against their skulls, and their tails twitched behind them.

“What do you mean, you know where that’s from?” he asked, arms akimbo.

“A strange man offered more of that filth to this one, for free. Said this one could keep the profits.” The trader handed the phial back, trying to touch it as little as possible. “He did not look well. Pale as the moon. When this one refused, he pulled out a blade yelling strange things, but Kharjo cut him down.”

Helreca and Marcurio fell silent for a moment, exchanging a meaningful glance, before Helreca cleared her throat. “Where was that, sera?”

“In the hills south of Heartwood Mill, across the river.” The trader sighed. “Be careful, this one does not know what is hiding there.”

With another bow, Helreca gave the trader a handful of Septims. “Thank you for your help, sera. I wish you safe travels.”

  
  
  


When they’d left the caravan behind, Marcurio exhaled sharply through his nose. “Aaand we get to go almost all the way back. Great.”

“Quit whinging, we were lucky the trader knew what we needed to know,” Helreca said. “More importantly, what do you think was going on with the man they met? Another addict? Just sick?”

“No clue. I suppose we’ll find out.”

* * *

By the time they reached the area the trader had described, the sun had vanished behind a layer of gray clouds. In the distance, the mill peeked out between trees and another hill, on the other side of a bay in the river. They rode slowly, a few dozen paces apart, so they wouldn’t miss the forest for the trees. Apart from waist-high grass and the occasional pine, there wasn’t much to distract from the rocky hills.

Which made not finding anything rather frustrating.

Every corner looked like the next. What were they even looking for? A cave entrance, a house or a hidden trap door? Or maybe a camp? Looking too closely in one place meant potentially missing something in the next. What she missed, Helreca wasn’t sure, but every time she caught herself being drawn to a nook under an overhang, she pulled herself out of it, forcing herself to look elsewhere. There weren’t even any tracks to speak of.

Letting out a frustrated sigh, Helreca lifted her waterskin to her lips, when she caught a whiff of smoke in the light afternoon breeze. It came from further up north, and aside from the smell of burnt wood, it carried something else. Something she couldn’t quite make out.

“Over here!” she yelled in Marcurio’s direction, holding one arm in the air.

He made his way towards her with a confused look on his face. “Found something?”

Rolling her eyes at him, she wafted air at her nose.

“Oh,” Marcurio said after a moment, sitting up straighter in his saddle. “Well, let’s get going then!”

  
  
  


It didn’t take long before they happened upon a narrow footpath that snaked through the hills. The smoky smell became stronger and stronger the further they progressed, and the wind picked up, blowing Helreca’s hair into her face. She sighed. Hopefully it wouldn’t turn into an outright storm.

Soon, the thatched roof of a small hut appeared behind a crest, a column of smoke rising from it. When they got closer and the whole hut came into sight, Helreca’s eyebrows slowly rose.

Half of the hut’s roof was gone, and the walls below it had seen better days, too. There was definitely movement, though. A few men in rudimentary leather armor sat around the fireplace, seemingly engrossed in conversation. They didn’t notice Helreca and Marcurio descending from their horses, approaching cautiously. Instead, they slowly turned a skeever on a spit above the fire.

Upon closer inspection, the men’s armor hung off their bodies loosely, and they were pale, much paler than they should’ve been in this region. Lack of sunlight definitely wasn’t a problem in the Rift.

“What shall we do?” asked Marcurio in a hushed tone.

Helreca gave a shrug. “I guess I’ll ask? Nobody’s attacked us yet, so…” With that, she stepped up the planks somebody had bridged the rotten stairs to the porch with and loudly knocked on the remainder of what used to be a front door. “Hello? Terribly sorry to intrude— “

“Who in Oblivion are you?” barked one of the men from the fire, one hand on the hilt of his sword. “What do you want?”

When he turned towards them, Helreca’s brows shot up. The man’s face was so haggard that his cheekbone visibly protruded like a jagged cliff. How was he still alive and how could he possibly believe he’d be in any condition to fight? He hadn’t shaved in a while either, his scraggly, patchy beard stood off in all directions.

For the second time that day, Helreca lifted her palms. “As I said, I’m sorry to bother you, ser, but we’re looking for someone. Have you seen a young man named Gralnach? Miller’s son, slightly shorter than you, brown hair?”

“Nah. Nobody like that.” His grip on the sword tightened. “Anything else?”

Helreca pulled the phial out and showed it to him. “Then perhaps you know where this came from? Probably a long shot, but…”

It took all her restraint not to grin when he froze in place for a moment, before he abruptly turned around and went to talk to his colleague. Marcurio smirked beside her. So far, Gralnach was nowhere to be seen yet, though.

The men stuck their heads together and whispered until one of them came back with a sly grin on his face. “I think we have just what you need,” he said, and gestured towards the corner of the half-collapsed house. “Follow me.” He stopped in front of a large trap door, with his arms akimbo. “Unfortunately you’re gonna have to leave any weapons outside.”

Helreca gave him a tight-lipped smile. “I don’t think so, ser.”

“Then leave.” His hand moved towards the hilt of his sword again, and he tried to appear as tall as possible.

Straightening up, Helreca shoved her cloak aside, revealing her own sword. The man had about two finger’s widths on her now. “I don’t think I’m going to do that, either,” she said. “You can let me in, or you can try to stop me, which isn’t going to end well for you. So, what’s it going to be?”

While the guy’s friend, who looked just as haggard as himself, nervously looked between them, he just let out a long sigh. “Shor’s bones, fine.”

With a labored groan, he lifted the trap door, revealing a tall ladder beneath. From down below, the dim flicker of torches tinged the tunnel’s walls in warm orange, and the stuffy scent of smoke mixed with spent air rose into Helreca’s nose. There was something else to it, though, something she couldn’t quite place.

Marcurio shoved past her and climbed down the ladder. “Alright, let’s see what we have here,” he said.

After she’d followed him down the crooked rungs, she found herself in a dingy corridor with damp wooden walls. It led down a few paces, enough that you couldn’t see the room it ended in from the ladder. With an annoyed grunt, the guy who let them in shoved past her and unlocked the door in the next room.

Behind it, another corridor led even further down. Wordlessly, Helreca and Marcurio made their way into yet another room. This one was much larger, and the air was so thick you could cut it. Behind a counter,sectioned off with a metal cage, a woman with short brown hair set up phials in a row. A worn rug lined the floor, with folds any inattentive patron would inadvertently trip over. Muffled coughing and the occasional surprised gasp came from booths that lined the walls, and red smoke poured into the middle through their curtains.

At the sight of Helreca’s sword, the woman behind the counter flinched, but she relaxed after one of the guards waved his hand. “Well, elf, if you want skooma, we have skooma,” he said.

She ignored him, already walking down the rows of booths. Between the noblemen, deserted soldiers and other addicts, none of them bore any resemblance to someone like Gralnach. They were all either too old or too run down and haggard, and Gralnach hadn’t been addicted long enough to lose that much muscle. At least Helreca hoped he hadn’t.

“Excuse me, sera?” She tapped one of the more awake looking noblemen on the shoulder. “Have you seen a young bo— “

Someone loudly cleared his throat behind her. “Lass, if you’re gonna bother the patrons, you’re gonna have to leave.”

“We’re here to find someone, so unless the gentleman tells me to fuck off, I’m going to do my best to find them,” she said, turning around to face a stocky, middle aged man resting his hand on the pommel of a short sword. She skewered him with her gaze. “I don’t have anything against drugs, but if you’re not going to let me do that, we’re going to have a problem, ser.”

Furrowing his bushy brows, the man grumbled something unintelligible and backed away.

Marcurio looked after him. “Rather unpleasant fellow, huh?” he said. “What do we do if we don’t find the lost sheep here?”

“Look deeper.” Helreca sharply nodded towards the metal gate at the end of the room. “Which means fighting.”

He made a face. “Egh, unfortunately, I have to agree. You finish this side, I take the other one?”

Giving a huff in agreement, Helreca moved to the next booth.

  
  
  


At the end of the room, the two met up again, both sullenly shaking their heads.

“Alright, so what next?” Marcurio asked. “That gate looks locked, can’t just march through there, can we?”

Helreca shrugged. “Can’t hurt to ask.”

“Well— “

“I know, I know. I’m still going to.” With a sigh and a roll of her eyes, Helreca made her way over to the man who’d threatened her earlier.

He had a grin on his face that, while it missed a few teeth, was much too smug for her liking. “Didn’t find what you were looking for, elf? Too bad. That means you can go back to where you came from, eh?”

Ignoring the double meaning that swung in his last sentence, she crossed her arms. “No. What’s behind that metal gate?”

“None of your business,” he spat.

Helreca scoffed. “Oh, it is absolutely my business if a certain someone is behind that gate,” she said with a smirk. “So, what’s behind the gate?”

“You need to leave, knife-ear!” He lunged forward to grab her arm.

His fingers dug into her skin, but not for long. With her other hand, Helreca grabbed his wrist and twisted it backwards in a vice grip. His voice stepped up an octave or two as he yelped, letting go of her. She kept twisting his arm, until she’d turned him around.

The only thing that came out of her mouth when she opened it again was a surprised “B’vek!” as she jumped back.

If she hadn’t let go of the guy’s arm, she would’ve lost her own. Another man swung his sword at her in clumsy, wide arcs.

Helreca barely got to pull her own blade from its scabbard before lightning crackled through the air and filled it with the stench of burnt hair and skin. Twitching, her attacker fell to the ground.

“You alright, Belnon?” Marcurio belted over the screams and gasps of frightened patrons, sparks still fizzling on his fingertips.

Giving a sharp nod, Helreca brought her blade up to parry a hefty cut aimed for her head. The sound of metal against metal rang in her ears when she shoved the man’s sword aside.

She kicked him in the solar plexus, sending him flying across the floor. With a quick step, she was by his side and stepped on his arm. He cried out in pain. His sword clattered to the floor as it fell from his limp hand.

“Told you we were going to have a problem,” Helreca said.

The patrons fell silent. Some of them were soldiers, but they were clearly in no condition to fight. Arguably, neither were the posted guards, haggard as they were, but they didn’t seem to share that sentiment. S’wits, all of them.

With a battle cry that could almost be described as impressive, the man whose arm she’d twisted ran towards her, his sword raised. Helreca sidestepped his swing and let his momentum carry him right into the tip of her blade. His scream turned into a gurgle as he crumpled to the ground.

“The kid’s dead, you bitch!” The man Helreca had knocked down before squirmed under her foot, but as he pulled out his knife, an ice spike pinned him to the floor, straight through his chest.

Before Helreca could express her gratitude to Marcurio, the gate at the end of the room flew open with an ear-piercing creak and slammed into the wall. Two more men came barreling into the room, shields and war axes raised.

Settling into a stable stance, Marcurio brought his hands together and stretched them out in front of him. A gust of flame rushed from between his fingers, made the air shimmer with heat. One of the men didn’t duck behind his shield quickly enough, and his clothes caught on fire. He dropped to the floor, rolling in the dirt.

The other one stormed past Marcurio with his shield in front of him towards Helreca, trying to ram her into the wall. As she rushed backwards, Helreca almost tripped over one of the folds in the carpet. She caught her balance, just in time to dodge the brute’s ax carving a gap into the air where she had just stood.

He grunted, reoriented himself.

With his shield up, there weren’t many openings for Helreca to strike through, if she didn’t want to expose herself to his ax in the process. She kept her weight on the balls of her feet as she circled him, ready to jump away at any moment.

Exhaling sharply through his nose like an angry steer, he trudged after her, heavy and slow. His beady eyes tracked her every move.

Until he struck.

With speed that defied his size, he thrust his shield towards her.

As she spun out of the way, Helreca’s cloak brushed across its rough wood. Keeping the momentum, she turned to his back and let her blade slice through the sinews in the hollow of his knee.

He collapsed to the floor, letting out a drawn out, pained grunt, before Helreca rammed her sword through his back.

When she pulled it back out, she gave a huff and looked around the room once more, scanning for threats. A few of the patrons that weren’t passed out let out a sigh of relief, while others still cowered in the booths for fear Helreca and Marcurio might come for them next.

Behind the caged counter, the woman who’d been busy filling vials moments ago shakily backed to the wall, a dagger clutched in her hands. She barely breathed, almost dropped the dagger too when Helreca shook the blood off her sword with a flick of her hand.

“We’re terribly sorry for the mess,” Helreca said, “but would you please put the dagger down? If you don’t attack us, we won’t attack you.”

It took her a moment, but the woman gingerly stepped forwards and placed the weapon back on the counter, as if she was handling a pot of boiling oil. “They’ll kill you,” she whispered, barely loud enough to hear. “They’ll kill both of you. Just leave.” Her voice became louder now. “Please.”

Helreca turned to Marcurio, but he just gave a shrug and pursed his lips to one side. The murderous intent of the place’s inhabitants really wasn’t a mystery anymore, so what had she meant?

When Helreca opened her mouth to ask, the door behind the counter slammed shut, and the metallic click of several locks echoed through the room.

“Guess she won’t tell us,” Marcurio said and scoffed. “I guess we’re going further down?”

Helreca gave a nod, and clapped her hands. Several patrons raised their heads. “Same goes for you people. We don’t want to cause any undue harm, so— it’d be best if you didn’t follow us.” She spoke loudly, and her vocal chords smarted in protest. Hopefully these people would understand her, even in their state. “If you can, you should probably leave, too. It’s not safe here.”

Slowly but surely, some of the more sensible patrons started gathering their belongings.

* * *

Venturing past the gate, the walls weren’t sided in wood anymore, and the floor was damp and uneven. Roots hung from the ceiling, brushed across Helreca’s face when she didn’t duck in time. In the dim light of the torches it was hard to spot, but the lower they went, the same red mist that filled the den’s booths floated above the ground, swallowing their feet.

As they turned a corner, several gigantic wooden vats came into view. They made the cavern look cramped, even though Riften’s market could fit in here twice over. The red mist spilled over their rims. Underneath the sickeningly sweet odor of the skooma, that strange note became stronger.

Helreca held a hand up, indicating to Marcurio to stop for a moment. They weren’t alone in here. Around the vats, people wearing little more than glorified sacks kept the fires underneath fed, and every once in a while, a pair of glowing red eyes pierced through the gloom.

Vampires.

Those weren’t anything to joke about. Bandits in great numbers might be a challenge, but they were weak individually. Vampires, however posed an entirely different threat. In the few fights she’d had with their kind, Helreca had learned a few things: They moved uncannily quickly, and letting them use their magic was a terrible idea. There were also rumors that some of them could turn invisible. Nothing that boded well.

Last time, she’d narrowly escaped with her life, and she’d still waited a week before she let anyone near her again, for fear she’d been turned. This wasn’t going to be a repeat of that.

She tugged on Marcurio’s arm and pulled him behind the corner again. “Fought vampires before?”

He shook his head, and a line appeared on his forehead as he furrowed his brows.

“Alright. Don’t get scratched or bitten, don’t let them get behind you, and try to zap the magic out of them,” she explained in a hushed voice, barely more than a whisper. “They have magic that makes you weaker while making them stronger. We don’t want that.”

Marcurio gave a determined nod.

They both stepped around the corner again, careful not to step on anything that’d make a sound. As silently as possible, Helreca drew her sword, ready to strike—

— only to run into one of the workers.

“Alarm!” he cried, dropped his bucket and booked it.

His voice echoed through the cave, and suddenly many pairs of glowing eyes fixated Helreca in their gaze. Accompanied by rattling chains, a wretched choir of howls made the hair on Helreca’s neck stand on end — the vampire’s barely canine death hounds were loose. Above the vats, a drawbridge fell into place, opening the path for reinforcements.

“Well, shit,” Marcurio groaned. “There goes the element of surprise.”

Helreca gave a scoff. “Pretty sure we lost that up there.” She jabbed over her shoulder with her thumb. “Got any ‘surprise’ spells, wizard? Something like peek-a-boo?”

“Har har. Less jokes, more fighting for our lives.”

As soon as he finished that sentence, the first death hound came hurtling towards them. Its maw was a haphazard collection of butcher’s knives, but when it tried catching Helreca’s sword with it, it lost both its lower jaw and its footing.

The stench that erupted into the room when she nicked the hound’s skin made her eyes water and her nose burn. No time for disgust, though. The next hound already came running, with its vampiric master in tow.

Heat rolled down Helreca’s left arm and a gust of flame enveloped the creature. It completely ignored the fire, didn’t even break its stride. In a low swing, Helreca aimed for its legs. Just barely, the tip of the blade cut through muscle and cartilage, sent it nose first into the ground. Helreca plunged her sword through its skull. Had to be safe.

“You have some nerve coming here, mortals!” one of the vampires hissed.

His garments obscured his build, but he twirled a long, pointy rapier around in his hand. Not something she could block very well. If he got one strike in, it’d be over. Mustn’t be careless.

Another one emerged from between the vats. “Never should have come here,” he said, his tone almost accusatory, as if he wasn’t running an illegal skooma operation and feeding on hapless patrons.

The small ramp Helreca and Marcurio had come in on was much too cramped for such opponents. This fight needed space, so Helreca shoved the carcass of the death hound aside and stepped fully into the room, in front of the vats.

Stalking around her, the rapier-wielding vampire made almost no sound. That, combined with the eerie grin he had on his bloodless face, sent shivers down Helreca’s spine.

“You think you can get out of here alive?” He gave an amused snort, exposing his fangs. “Now that’s almost adorable.” As he spat the last word, he jabbed forwards.

She sidestepped his attack. “You think you can prey on people without any consequences, bloodsucker?” she mumbled out between her teeth. “Too bad there’s nothing adorable about you.” An arc of energy sparked from Helreca’s fingers into his arm in a bright arc.

Gritting his teeth, he fought the spasms running down his sword arm, managed holding onto his rapier. Launching a flurry of swipes and blows at Helreca, he rushed her backwards, further and further away from Marcurio. If he kept this up, she’d fail to dodge his attacks eventually, no doubt about it. Helreca’s legs were quick, but not forever. Blow after swing after jab he threw at her, from every direction. He might as well have been two men.

But he fell into a pattern. Parrying and dodging his attacks, it wasn’t easy to notice, but it was there. And it opened a vulnerability — that is, if he didn’t decide to suddenly change the pattern.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Hoping he wouldn’t notice, Helreca let energy surge through her arm. More and more electricity crackled between her fingertips while she narrowly evaded his blade.

“Marcurio,” she yelled, “not dead yet?”

Over the sound of metal hitting metal, his voice was hard to make out. “You wish, friend!” His tone was strained, the battle took his toll on him as well.

“Send a firebolt over here!”

The vampire’s rapier slowed as he turned to anticipate Marcurio’s attack.

And Helreca released her lightning.

With a thunderous snap, a blinding flash of energy struck the vampire in his chest. It sent him flying backwards, and he landed on the ground next to a cart full of bodies. Before he could get up, Helreca was above him, and after a well-placed strike, his head rolled in the dirt.

The firebolt never came.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  
> 
> This has become slightly more dangerous than either of them had anticipated.


	4. Chapter 4

Cold spread through Helreca’s body. She tried to ignore it, to turn and fight, but her body wouldn’t budge.

No. This couldn’t be happening.

This was a terrible time for her nightmares to become reality. It took everything in her to move a finger’s width. This wouldn’t do, she couldn’t fight like this, couldn’t find the miller’s boy.

A sticky warmth seeped into her undershirt. She willed her eyes to move, and when she saw the blade jutting out of her chest, all her lungs managed was a pained gurgle instead of a scream.

The blade was pulled out of her back. Every time it snagged on her flesh and bones, it sent a dull throb through her body. Maybe she imagined it, but her vision darkened at the edges. It frayed into lightless tendrils, slowing down and getting longer the more the moment stretched on.

Was this what death was like?

Just before the world ground to a halt, a searing pain shot through her neck.

And in the dark, uncountable, eerily green eyes with oddly shaped irises opened, fixating her in their unbearably uncomfortable gaze. Out of nowhere, slick tentacles probed the air and waved about without direction or purpose.

“You appear to have found yourself in a rather destitute situation, mortal.” A strange voice resounded from everywhere and nowhere at once, changing pitch and staying monotonous at the same time.

Helreca’s lips wouldn’t move and no sound would leave them, but of all the questions buzzing around in her mind, one stood out. “Who are you?” it echoed through her head.

The voice boomed at her, as if the question offended it, and as if it was the most normal thing in all of Nirn that it could hear the question, even though she didn’t say a thing. “I am Hermaeus Mora, the Gardener of Men, knower of the unknown, master of fates.”

If this wasn’t a death-induced hallucination or a side effect of the fumes she’d been breathing since she got here, she now had proof. The Daedra were real. The last thing she learned before she died would prove the existence of what she’d always doubted. If time wasn’t at a standstill, she’d laugh. Also cough up some blood, but laugh.

“You have met the end of your existence in the plane of the living much sooner than you were meant to,” continued Hermaeus Mora. Ever undulating, the tentacles stopped just short of her face whenever they got close. “If you are willing to submit yourself to an assessment of your… resilience, however, I will let you stay in this realm, even past the fulfillment of your inevitable fate. Consider your answer wisely, mortal — refuse, and you shall perish. Accept my trial, and live to see the light of day once more. What say you?”

When a Daedric prince offered you a second chance at life, taking him up on it wasn’t a difficult choice. Before Hermaeus Mora had finished his speech, Helreca’s mind already echoed with a firm “Yes.”

A wave of blinks rolled through the sea of eyes, and the tentacles shivered in the air. “Very well.”

From one moment to the next, the cavern and the vampires and the pain vanished.

* * *

Without warning, time lurched into motion again. Helreca’s sword clattered to the floor. Clutching at her chest, she dropped to her knees, felt for the wound the blade should’ve left.

Nothing.

She inhaled like it was the last breath she’d ever take, expecting to cough up blood.

Nothing.

Instead, a foul, sickly-sweet stench assaulted her nose. Even though the stuffy warmth should’ve made her sweat, she shivered under her armor. As she shakily rose to her feet again, she let her gaze wander. Carried by gusts of wind, sheets of paper rustled through the air, past walls and spires made entirely of — books?

Helreca blinked, pinched the bridge of her nose.

Yes, those were indeed walls of books, and they moved, slowly, in and out. Like they breathed.

Wondering whether or not this was a dream or a terrifyingly elaborate hallucination was no use. Helreca tightened the grip on her sword.

The moving walls didn’t support a roof, and fog swirled in the sunless, off-green skies. The ground beneath her feet looked like stone. Felt like stone, too, but trusting anything in this place to be what it looked like seemed like a futile exercise. At least it supported her weight.

Where the platform ended, a brackish sea of viscous sludge began. Its oily surface licked against the book-walls with uncanny uniformity. Occasionally, a tentacle rose out of it and vanished just as quickly as it had come.

Helreca had nowhere to go. She could risk wading through the sludge, but she quickly discarded that idea again. Throwing away chances like this wasn’t for her.

“Hello?” she called out, and winced.

When she moved it, her jaw smarted something fierce. She moved it side to side a few times, opened and closed her mouth for good measure, too. It worked like it should, wasn’t broken.

Was Hermaeus Mora actually going to tell her what his trial entailed? Right now, it looked like she’d be stuck on this stone platform amidst tentacles and books until she starved to death. Which would at least give her some time to contemplate her demise — although, now that she thought of it, that didn’t seem all that appealing, either.

She kept her sword drawn. Getting caught off guard now would just be embarrassing.

“Anyone there? Hermaeus Mora?”

As soon as the prince’s name left her lips, his tentacles appeared through the fog in the sky.

“Welcome, mortal, to my realm. This is Apocrypha, where all knowledge is hoarded,” his voice boomed.

Helreca gave a huff. “It’s… lovely, muthsera.”

“Your insolent opinions about Apocrypha aside, there are aspects of your fate the knowledge of which I have decided to bestow upon you.”

Apocrypha wasn’t pretty, but it beat getting stabbed to death, so Helreca bit back another insolent opinion. Who knew how whimsical Hermaeus Mora could be? She might’ve known if she hadn’t indulged in her daydreams whenever someone had tried to teach her about the Daedra when she was little.

“As you might have noticed, the mortal wound in your chest is no more,” Mora continued. “However, before I intervened, you have contracted what is commonly known as Sanguinare Vampiris.”

Helreca’s breath caught in her throat. She was going to live, but as a vampire? ‘Live’ might’ve been the wrong term. Existence as the very thing that killed her. Her mouth dried at the thought of it.

Hermaeus Mora’s tentacles picked up speed, as if he was agitated. “This condition will prove most beneficial to you in your servitude, though it is quite limiting.”

“Servitude?” Helreca interjected, her voice scratching its way out of her throat.  “What do you want from me?”

“Your destiny will reveal itself to you in due time. In the event that you overcome my trial, you shall gain the power to withstand the sun’s radiance and become my champion. If you do not… Apocrypha will claim you forever.

“For now, find the knowledge you need, and Apocrypha will return you.”

With that, he vanished into thin air, leaving her alone with a myriad of questions and her old life gone.

How incredibly helpful.

Helreca opened her mouth to ask how she was supposed to ‘find knowledge’ stuck on a platform, but before she could say anything, one of the walls bent out of shape. It formed a tunnel, sparsely lit by bulbous, orange glowing growths.

* * *

Gingerly, Helreca stepped into it. Under her feet, the floor gave way a little, but not enough to feel like it wouldn’t support her weight. The tunnel’s cocoon-like walls showed intricate patterns. Their shapes repeated over and over, and yet they didn’t.

Keeping her eyes trained on the next bend, Helreca kept moving forward, her sword at the ready. Surely, she wasn’t Apocrypha’s only inhabitant.

After a good while of walking, the end of the tunnel came into view.

And Helreca stumbled, almost fell over as it moved again with a doleful groan and creak. The oily sludge shimmered through gaps in the floor. Even her years of training couldn’t have prepared her for this. What if Apocrypha had a mind of its own? What if it just let her exhaust herself, so she’d never reach her target? If it had a whim, she’d utterly and completely be at its mercy. Where would she even begin to look in the first place? I wasn’t like she could simply ask a librarian.

The tunnel stopped again, and, cracking and crunching, it connected to the end of another one. As soon as Helreca progressed into the next tunnel, the previous one bent away behind her, leaving a steep drop into the sludge. She peered over the edge.

From the depths, a tentacle whipped upward and swiped at her, dripping black liquid all over the floor.

“B’vek!” Helreca fell backwards evading it, crawled away from the ledge before she got up again.

Sword in hand, she waited for the tentacle to come back.

But it didn’t.

As she continued down the tunnel, the little hairs on the back of her hand stood on end. Was it actually hot in this strange place? If it was, why did she shiver so much? She wiped her forehead, found it drenched in cold sweat with specks of blood that weren’t hers.

Moving down her neck, there was something coarse and searing hot under her fingertips. It sent a vague throb through her body. She resisted the urge to scratch at it, dig her nails under the scabs.

This couldn’t be good.

She had to get out of this place, and being sick definitely wouldn’t help with that. Picking up her pace, she rounded bend after bend, avoided pools of black sludge as much as she could. Her joints began to ache more and more, irregularly, as if a constant, reliable pain was too much to ask for. If the tunnel didn’t end soon, she’d drop to the floor and sleep, and who knew if she’d wake up from that. Pain would pass, death not so much. At least in most cases.

So she pressed on, her teeth gritted together. Which didn’t help the pangs of a headache that came and went.

Until a gate blocked her way, made from the same material the tunnels used. Behind it, a vast hall opened up, and something moved along its walls.

Helreca gave the gate a tentative push. Maybe it’d swing open silently — and it didn’t budge. Of course it wouldn’t. It didn’t have any handles or obvious locks, so picking it was out of the question, and the idea of breaking it open with her sword just made her clutch it tighter.

There had to be a way to open it. No lever on the tunnel’s walls, no buttons. Only one of the glowing growths came up from the floor right next to the door, erupting on a thin, curved stem between two horns.

She’d never seen any growths come up from the floor before.

Standing as far away as she could, she reached out to the glowing bit. It radiated heat, so much it made her fingertips tingle, but just before she could touch it, it fell, and the pedestal came alive, swallowing it.

The surrounding area was plunged in darkness, and with an almost mournful creak, the door opened.

Helreca hurried into the hall, out of the dark. The dark seemed hungry, reluctant to let her leave.

Centered around a circular basin of sludge, the floor’s material alternated between the cocoon-like material she was used to from the tunnels and flat rock. Hundreds of ripped-out pages were scattered everywhere, more so near the walls of tightly packed tomes. Occasionally, a desk filled out a nook, buried under even more books, soul gems and dusty stationery. Trying to make as little noise as she could, Helreca moved into the room, looked for an exit.

Whatever the creature on the other end of the room was, it kept its attention focused on the wall. It floated, in a tattered, greenish cloak. Arms and tentacles moved underneath. Hopefully it’d stay that way and let her pass.

Helreca’s eyes darted back and forth between the creature and the wall by her side as she snuck along. Either the knowledge she needed to find was in here, or this place would lead her there — if Hermaeus Mora hadn’t lied and it wasn’t all just a ruse to see her suffer. Finding a single book in these walls could take several lifetimes. If she was supposed to find it, it’d be obvious, wouldn’t it?

And who said it had to be a book?

Hermaeus Mora wasn’t exactly thorough with his explanations.

Hopefully this wasn’t some spiritual ‘find yourself in the journey’ guar crap. If that was the punchline, she’d throw caution to the wind and try to kill a Daedric prince, futility be damned.

Helreca smirked at the thought, which sent a jolt of dull pain through her jaw. With a sharp exhale, she looked up again.

Only to find the creature gone.

Fuck.

She’d lost it over her musings, and now it could be everywhere. Not moving a muscle, Helreca stared into the room, trying to spot the faintest movement. Nothing.

She gingerly lifted one foot and placed it in front of the other, once, twice, three times. Did the air in front of her just shimmer? Another step. It did, didn’t it?

In a cloud of mist, the creature appeared before her, a many-armed abomination reeking of rot and fish.

Helreca jumped aside, dodged the blast of energy the creature released, got as much distance between it and herself as she could. Heat rushed down her left arm, ready to burst from her hands in flames—

— but the creature turned with a speed that belied its size, and another blast knocked her to the floor. What strength she had was drained, her limbs wouldn’t push her upright. As the creature approached, Helreca’s heart hammered in her chest. She had to get up.

This couldn’t be it.

Under the creature’s cloak that waved in the air like it was underwater, two pairs of humanoid arms stretched out, performed strange gestures. With her on the floor, it wasn’t in a hurry. It let out an otherworldly, rolling roar that made its tentacles shake.

When it almost reached her, it stretched its arms out towards her.

Fire shot from Helreca’s palm, aimed straight for the grotesque maw in the middle of its body. The creature recoiled, its shriek making Helreca’s ears tingle.

She rolled out from underneath it, and got back on her feet as the effects of the creature’s attack wore off. Her joints protested, but she lunged at it with a series of cuts. Not once did her blade hit anything. The creature backed away, its tentacles standing off in all directions, jittering menacingly.

In a puff of vapor, another creature appeared, and fired another blast of energy at her.

Helreca sidestepped it and concentrated the heat in her arm to a single point, balling her fist. When she almost couldn’t hold it anymore, she threw it at the newcomer.

The creature burst into flame, and, with a blood curdling screech, burnt to a crisp.

Floating up higher, the other one spread its arms out and slowly brought them back together, growling.

Helreca growled back, in frustration and in pain, and readied another firebolt. She ran at the creature in an arc, made it turn as it aimed its next attack. With the firebolt floating in her hand scorching hot, she stopped.

And the creature’s shimmering blast uselessly splashed into the ground in front of her feet.

Helreca let loose.

Still staggered from its own attack and unable to evade, the creature’s tentacles writhed in agony when angry flames licked its slimy skin apart. It sunk to the floor, into Helreca’s reach.

With a wet smack, Helreca plunged her sword into what she assumed to be the creature’s head, twisted it sideways, pushed it in deeper. The fire fizzled out as the creature’s body began to dissolve. Still, it didn’t want to let the blade go, sticking onto it like heavy muck when Helreca dragged it out to the side.

Once the sword came free, the creature dissolved into a pile of goo, and its ragged coat settled on top of it.

Helreca gave a heavy sigh, tried wiping the goo from her sword on the cloak —

— only for something to grab her ankle, sending her face-first to the floor. She whipped around on her back as she was pulled to the pool of sludge in the middle of the room, hacked at the tentacle that gripped her.

A hand’s width before the pool, her sword bit into the tentacle, cut it clean off. The part that wrapped around her leg went limp and dissolved a moment after. Helreca scrambled to her feet, scrambled away from the pool, never turning her back to it.

Not a moment too soon. From the tarry liquid, two giant hands emerged, pushing a scaly, gangly body out. Rot hung off its bony limbs, and between its armored shoulders sat a tiny head, with its oversized maw full of teeth as long as Helreca’s forearm. It stood more than twice as tall as her, and its heart sent its blood rushing through its body fast.

It reached Helreca’s ears like a dull, far-away drum beat.

She searched for eyes in its visage, but she couldn’t spot any, not with the sludge running off of it. Its steps made the ground shake, and it hunched over and screeched, three long tentacles shooting from its maw. The tip of one of them sprayed blood, black as tar.

“Where in Oblivion do you find these things?” Helreca yelled to the skies.

The monster lunged at her.

As she rolled out of the way, its talons grazed along her boots.

“Stupid question,” she pressed out between gritted teeth.

Her ward went up just in time to block off the sizzling spit the monster sprayed at her. It burnt holes into the paper on the floor. Helreca retreated as quickly as she could, quick enough for the monster to screech in frustration. Its attacks didn’t stop, didn’t leave a gap for her to get her own blows in. She couldn’t keep this up forever. Sooner or later all the dodging and blocking would wear her out, make her collapse.

And that meant she’d fail.

She wouldn’t get out of here. She wouldn’t be able to find the boy. She wouldn’t get to help Marcurio with the vampires.

She couldn’t allow that.

If the monster didn’t leave a gap itself, she’d have to make one. She turned around and ran. The monster’s tentacle tongues narrowly missed her back. Under protest, her legs carried her forwards, and thankfully, the paper on the ground didn’t slip enough for her to fall. The other creature burnt well. Maybe this one did, too.

While the monster stomped after her, she let heat flow into her fist again, and when she almost couldn’t hold it anymore, she whipped around and fired.

Seemingly unfazed, the monster kept charging at her, but the flames licked up its torso, ate away at its skin. It swiped at her, but Helreca ran again. Eventually, it had to notice the pain, right?

Right. So she threw more fire at it, kept running.

Her legs burned and stung now, but that only meant she was still alive. She ignored the pain in her jaw as she gritted her teeth — that didn’t fit right on top of each other anymore. Something to worry about later.

With enough distance between her and the monster, she sent another firebolt and immediately turned to run some more.

But this time, the monster yowled in pain. It clutched its chest, pawed at the flames, twisted and turned in place.

Helreca gripped her sword tighter and closed in. She ducked under the monster’s flailing arms, light on her feet, jumping out of the way of its massive feet.

The monster didn’t seem to notice her anymore — it was too busy with the fire. Maybe she’d even managed to blind it. Helreca let her blade sink into the exposed flesh above its armored calves, cut deep.

Something snapped.

As it fell over, the monster’s knees bent into the wrong direction with a horrifying crunch. It smacked into the ground, stopped flailing and let out a deafening roar, whipped at her with its tentacle tongues. When it tried to stand up again, its legs buckled out from underneath it, smearing the ground with its black blood. It clawed itself forwards, attempted to turn around and at least take Helreca with it, but Helreca was faster.

Avoiding its arms and teeth, she circled it and rammed her sword between its rips. Twisted it. Pulled it back out. A fountain of foul-smelling blood splashed across her gambeson, and finally, the monster lay still.

She dragged herself away from its corpse and sat on one of the desks along the wall, let her back rest against the stacked books. It took awhile for her to catch her breath. With her eyes closed, she breathed deeply, even though this place stank. For a moment, the only sounds were the rustle of paper in the wind, the sludge licking against the edge of the stone floor and her own breath and heartbeat.

Helreca stretched out her limbs.

 _Good job_ , she thought, _still in one piece_.

The sound of books shifting and groaning made her jump. On the other side of the room, the book wall parted, bending outward. Another  tunnel opened in the gap.

“Oh, you _have_ to be joking,” Helreca said, and slid off the table onto her feet. “More of this?”

Her joints ached in anticipation.

The tunnel took a sharp turn a few paces in, but it was short. It ended with another gate and another glowing growth. When the growth swallowed its bulb and opened the gate, it revealed a small, circular room.

Illuminated by a single skylight, a pedestal stood in the middle. The book on top of it drew her towards it, and before she knew it, her fingers brushed across its withered leather binding, adorned with a symbol Helreca had never seen before. It showed a being with many clawed arms and tentacles, so many that making out a body or silhouette was impossible. From between its yellowed pages came a quiet whisper that implored her to open and read it in a language she’d never heard before and that she shouldn’t be able to understand.

She lifted the book’s heavy cover and peered inside.

The whispering grew louder, and like a colony of ants, the letters on the pages skittered all over each other, formed patterns and dissolved them again, until they stopped abruptly. From one moment to the next, what used to be foreign glyphs formed coherent sentences.

And they wormed themselves into Helreca’s mind, gripped her tight and lifted her off her feet. The sheer volume of information took her breath away and made her head explode in pain. Her mind raced to keep up, struggled to sort the new and ancient, nonverbal knowledge where it belonged. Her vision blurred, maybe from tears, maybe from the book’s tendrils.

It stopped.

Before she could voice her relief, she fell into inky blackness.

* * *

Voices penetrated the darkness, agitated and nervous. They talked over each other and came closer.

Everything hurt.

The back of her head rested on something cold, hard and damp. Many footsteps moved towards her, some heavy, some light, making her body tense up like a mouse trap teetering on the edge of being sprung. Clothes rustling and trinkets clinking against each other hit Helreca’s ears. Someone stepped into a puddle — or maybe a rivulet?

Apocrypha’s funk had been replaced with stale air and something metallic and sweet. It permeated the air.

It made her mouth water.

Helreca tried keeping her breathing as shallow as possible, so she wouldn’t have to inhale more of it. Her limbs still didn’t want to move, and her lids were heavy. How long had she already laid here?

The footsteps stopped close to her. She counted four— no, five — slightly elevated heartbeats.

And then someone grabbed her face with rough hands, shoved a thumb into her mouth and pushed her lips aside.

“Vampire,” a low, masculine voice said, “still ali— “

Before he could finish the sentence, Helreca’s eyes snapped open and she twisted his hand back. His dirty, glowing yellow eyes were wide with surprise and fear.

When his bone snapped in her hand, something in her mind did, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  
> 
> One shoe dropped.


	5. Chapter 5

Helreca pulled herself up by the screaming man’s arm and sunk her teeth into his neck, ripping out a good chunk of it. Lukewarm blood spluttered out of the wound in spurts. It ran down Helreca’s chin and she found herself putting her mouth over it and swallowing eagerly. It tasted stale, like it’d gone off ages ago, but she still drank until five heartbeats became four. His body went limp, the twitching stopped.

She dropped him.

And heat pooled in her stomach, became hotter and hotter, made her vision fray at the edges again. Strength surged through her, made every fiber of her being tingle. One of the vampires yelled something, and the thralls raised their weapons.

Too late.

Helreca’s body moved on its own. Something rose from her shadow, lifted one of the thralls off his feet and pulled him towards her. With one hand, she crushed his wrist, with the other, she bent his head backwards. Again, her teeth tore into a neck and blood ran down her throat, hot and sweet this time. Fresh.

A battle cry came from behind, so she whipped around, with the thrall hanging limply from her mouth. She sidestepped the mace bearing down on her and shot an icicle into the attacker’s chest. With a wet sound, the thrall’s skin in her mouth tore to strips bit by bit and he fell to the floor, into a river of blood.

One of the vampires put up a ward and hesitantly approached, lightning crackling in his fist. Almost immediately, he retreated, stumbling over his own feet.

His spell still hit her square in the chest. The energy singed Helreca’s clothes and skin, made her twitch and stagger. But that’s all it did. With a guttural roar ripping out of her throat, she picked up the thrall’s dagger and charged at the vampire. More lightning hit her, but that only enraged her further. Shoving him against the wall, she rammed the dagger up his throat and through his neck to pin him upright.

Behind her, the last vampire ran at her, screaming. In one fluid motion, Helreca pulled the last foe’s sword out of its scabbard and threw it at him. He stumbled, fell to the floor with the sword sticking out of his chest and came down hard on the handle, driving it in deeper. His axe landed in front of Helreca’s boots.

Her vision cleared up; the tendrils retreated like a frayed veil. Blood still dripped from her chin. Blood that had come from the ripped up throats of the bodies in front of her.

She had killed before. Killing was her business.

Not like this.

She had to run.

Had to get out, had to leave, had to—

Why hadn’t she noticed before? The rivulet on the floor was blood. The entire place smelled of it, sweet and metallic. And yet there was something off about it, like spoiled milk or an egg about to turn foul. Bones and body parts were strewn about haphazardly, and something twisted in Helreca’s gut. Had it already been there before she arrived?

Almost no torches or candles lit the halls, but she had no trouble seeing, even in the farthest corners. Something burbled close by.

There was a gate, a heavy one. Helreca pushed against it, grabbed the handles and shook it, but it wouldn’t budge. Maybe one of the vampires she killed had a key? Frantically, she rummaged through their pockets, until she found one — complex and ornate.

After she opened a gate, a cavern opened in front of her. Its entire floor was covered in blood, deep enough that the bubbling in the middle created ripples. Some old Nordic pillars framed the spring on either side, and a narrow stone pathway led across. The smell of blood was nauseating in here. Thick and humid, the air made it hard to breathe.

Helreca shuddered, and the hair on her neck stood on end. There was something deeply unsettling about this place.

Careful not to slip on the wet stone, Helreca made her way across.

The passageway on the other side led into a room full of coffins. A handful of dead draugr rotted away where they had been felled. Another door promised to lead out, away from all this.

Helreca shoved it open, almost broke the lock in the process. She stumbled over another dead draugr and found herself in a storage closet full of small glass phials. A well placed kick made its door crash open in a shower of splinters. The biting stench of skooma mixed with that of drying blood.

Behind the skooma den’s counter were enough little phials to poison an entire village. Its cage door stood open — the place was deserted. Dropped torches smouldered on the floor between the bodies Helreca and Marcurio had left there.

With a wistful look at the stairs leading out of this hellhole, Helreca took a deep breath and pulled out her sword again. Maybe Marcurio was still here somewhere. And the boy.

* * *

Helreca stepped over the bodies of the vampires and death hounds they’d killed before — well, before she’d turned into this. She kept her sword raised in front of her, licked her lips nervously. Her tongue snagged on her teeth.

Crying now would be counterproductive.

Her jaws still hurt faintly, didn’t quite fit right. She shifted her lower jaw from side to side, and it gave a popping sound.

Marcurio wasn’t where she’d last seen him. Why would he be? In the best case scenario, he’d defeated the vampires, found the boy and gotten out of here. Maybe he’d actually pulled it off.

The tiny hairs on the back of her neck stood on end when she reached the spot where she should’ve died. Her back itched, as if it remembered the cold steel. Her attacker laid in a scorched mess a few paces further, his sword buried in the dirt in front of him.

Helreca’s breath hitched.

Besides her own breathing, the crackle of the fires under the skooma vats was the only sound. She made her way over to the blade and gingerly picked it up. A shiver ran down her spine.

From the tip to the hilt, the sword was covered in nicks and notches. Some blood that hadn’t quite dried up yet ran down the groove in the middle — no doubt her own. She gave it a swing, more out of morbid curiosity than anything else, before she tossed it aside again.

A wry smirk crept onto her lips. So Marcurio had avenged her.

Which meant he probably survived that fight, at least?

The further she got, the more carts full of bodies she found between the vats. None of them matched Gralnach’s description. At the back of the room, a series of ramps and tunnels snaked up to the upper level, up to the bridge that stretched out between the vats. Occasionally, she found another dead vampire or thrall — the thrall’s blood smelled sweeter.

She sharply exhaled through her nose at the realization.

The bodies all had scorch marks or holes roughly as thick as a forearm. Marcurio had come through here, alright. He had a big mouth, but it seemed like he could back it up. Though, if the fight was still going on, it was eerily quiet.

Across the bridge, the unfixed cave walls made way for Nordic carvings. Helreca stepped into a rather filthy version of an alchemy lab — complete with an open coffin in the middle and a pile of bones with varying levels of flesh still on them in the corner. A vampire with alchemist’s robes laid dead across the doorstep, and her death hound’s body was splayed on the floor in a pool of its own rancid blood.

Still careful not to make too much noise, lest she alert a survivor, Helreca pressed on.

The next room made her gut twist.

Crammed into wrought iron cages that hung from the ceiling, several bodies dangled their bony limbs out between the bars. Their arms and necks were peppered in nicks and bite marks. More cages had been lined up along one of the walls, and next to them, dozens of bodies had been thrown over each other. Discarded. They were so thin, it looked like the very life had been sucked from their veins. A metallic shimmer came from a basket on the floor. She’d found the victims’ belongings.

Helreca’s hand hurt from gripping her sword so tight.

Everything in her body screamed to turn around and leave, but she had to take a closer look.

She couldn’t easily identify the boy. All of the bodies had their hair shaven off, and picking out facial features became nigh impossible, given how emaciated they were. But among all the trinkets in the basket was something that stood out.

A wooden pendant someone had carved a heart that grew roots into.

Helreca flipped between her fingers. The small G on the back confirmed her suspicions. With a sigh, Helreca dropped it into one of her pouches. Gralnach had met his end here, an end she really couldn’t wish upon anyone.

Aside from the occasional crackle of a fire, droplets of water falling from the ceiling and the almost silent trickle from the rivulet of blood, the den still remained quiet. If there was someone alive or undead in here besides her, they were masters of stealth.

Which vampires could very well be. And maybe Marcurio was still in here somewhere. She couldn’t very well leave him alone here, could she?

The rivulet of blood ran through the trench that divided the next room into two halves. Stone bridges ran between the halves, narrow, but built for the ages. Helreca tried to not step into the blood, not that it’d matter with the state her boots were in. She climbed the stairs out of the trench and peered over the ledge. More dead vampires, more coffins. No matter how much the dancing shadows the flickering torches threw on the walls wanted to convince her otherwise, there wasn’t any movement.

After she’d balanced across one of the narrow bridges, Helreca found herself in front of a large wooden gate. It was cracked open just enough for a person to slip through. A pained, wet rattle came from the other side.

Instead of anyone worth saving, Helreca found a dying death hound. With every breath, spittle mixed with blood flew from its razor-sharp teeth. A scrap of blood-soaked yellow fabric was stuck on one of them.

Frayed as it might be, it bore the same embroidery as Marcurio’s robes.

Helreca put the hound out of its misery with one quick stab and peered down the hall. Something about this place seemed familiar, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. A wall blocked the view into the rest of the room.

She rounded the corner, and more and more corpses came into view.

Corpses of vampires she had killed.

Right.

That happened.

Bile rose to her throat, and she swallowed it down again, held the back of her hand in front of her mouth.

She stood as if she’d grown roots, with the tip of her sword pointing to the ground.

Slowly, she raised one hand to her mouth and felt for her teeth — her canines were nearly double the length they used to be and so sharp she almost cut her finger.

After a few shaky breaths, she let her head fall backward and let out a long whine.

“Great. Just fucking great,” she muttered as she turned around to walk out the same way she’d come in. “Sanguinare Vampiris. Of bloody course. Not like I didn’t fucking know.”

Somehow, it hadn’t fully sunk in until now. Maybe it’d been the rush, the need for survival.

“Daedric prince shows up and offers you to let you ‘stay in this realm,’ and you say yes?” She ran a hand over her neck, where the burning scabs had been before. They had vanished. “I am not going to be like these bloodsuckers.”

She found the way out of the den like she was possessed. Automatically, she set one foot in front of the other, stepped over corpses and climbed stairs. This wasn’t at all how she’d imagine the rest of her life to go.

If she stayed like this, it’d be a rather long rest, too.

The trap door to the den stood open. Nobody had bothered to close it again — everyone in there had either died or fled.

* * *

As Helreca climbed out into the night, her stomach twisted. The den already hadn’t been as dark as it should’ve been, but the darkness of the night had turned into a pale version of muddied daylight. She shouldn’t be able to see this much.

A cold wind blew strands of hair in her face, carried the scent of more blood and the stench of burnt skin. Two more thralls laid in the grass not far from the shack, but they hadn’t bled, they had burned. Helreca followed the scent to where she and Marcurio had tied up their horses.

They were both still there.

Should she take them both with her? The thought crossed her mind for a moment, but she quickly dismissed it. As unlikely as it was, Marcurio might still be around. And if he was, he’d want to get on his horse and ride off, wouldn’t he? What would she even do with his horse if she took it?

Kilian stretched his head out towards her and sniffed as she approached. When her hands touched his lead, he recoiled and let out a snort, as if he didn’t know her. With his head held high, he pulled on the reins, tried getting as far away from her as he could. He bent the tree he was tied to slightly.

“Hoo, boy. It’s me, Kilian,” Helreca said, her voice low. “Just me. Juuust me.”

The gelding’s ears twitched and he shook his head.

“Hoo, Kil.” Helreca stood perfectly still and held her hand out. Which still had blood on it.

Great thinking.

Instead of pulling even more, Kilian raised his upper lip and sniffed more before he let out another snort and finally stood still, punctuating it all with a swish of his tail.

Helreca untied him and walked beside him. “You are one strange horse, Kilian,” she said and pulled herself up into the saddle.

Kilian carried her down the hill, towards the river. Which was a good idea, and something she hadn’t really thought of right now.

She needed to bring Leifnarr and Grosta the unfortunate news. But she couldn’t face them like this, caked in blood and grime — and more importantly, with these fangs of hers.

At the river, she’d at least wash her face and hands. That sounded like a plan. Not much of one. But a plan.

And what then? She couldn’t very well continue like nothing happened, could she? People would notice, and then she’d be on the run. Destiny and fate aside, this vampire thing was dangerous for many reasons. The people of Skyrim already had their superstitions and convictions about dunmer. Undoubtedly, they also had superstitions and convictions about vampires, and those would likely be much more of the lynch mob kind than the insult kind.

Getting new assignments would be more difficult like this, too.

Perhaps there was a way to get rid of the disease.

Vampires had existed for thousands of years, so at least one of them must’ve gotten fed up with it and found a way to rid themselves of this curse. Maybe they’d written down how they managed it.

Helreca shook her head. Surely she would’ve heard of that by now? ‘Suddenly have a craving for blood? Fear not, for I have the solution!’

What nonsense.

With a quiet nicker, Kilian stopped just short of the river’s bank. Helreca snapped out of her thoughts, climbed out of the saddle and made her way down to the water. She knelt at the water’s edge and pulled her gloves off, but when she reached into the water, she froze.

A pair of eerie green-yellow glowing eyes stared back at her, with their fringed pupils wide open. The waves shook the reflection of her nightmares, distorted it, but it didn’t go away.

Those were her eyes, her fangs, and someone else’s blood all over her chin.

She plunged her hands into the water and splashed it on her face, rubbed at her skin until it felt raw. The eyes and fangs stayed.

A wordless cry escaped her mouth. When the last bit of air left her lungs, she broke down sobbing. Her tears ran down her cheeks unhindered, collected at her chin and dropped into the river. She didn’t bother wiping them away.

The last time she cried had been ages ago, but she couldn’t help it. She cried into the night until she had no tears left.

Her life had been good. It hadn’t been anything special, but it had been good. Still, she should’ve died in that den. That vampire had used a mistake in her defense to end her, and he should’ve succeeded. Instead, she had accepted this idiotic deal.

With her hands balled into fists and her lips pressed into a tight line, she got to her feet.

There must be someone who could fix this. Vampires had existed for thousands of years. The idea that none of them had tried to become mortal again seemed utterly ridiculous. She could still walk, and that meant she could try and do something about it. After she threw another handful of water in her face, she grabbed Kilian’s reins and got into the saddle again.

Once she found a beaten trail through the hills, the list of priorities in her mind got longer.

Heartwood Mill would be the next stop, and before the sun rose too, preferably. Leifnarr and Grosta could both read, so she’d have to write them a note. The thought of talking to them face to face sent shivers down Helreca’s spine.

After that… Getting cured would be good. And not killing or biting random citizens in the process. Ivarstead was the closest town, perhaps someone there knew something.

Maybe this would all be over soon.

She dug her heels into Kilian’s flanks. Sunrise would come soon.

* * *

When she arrived at the mill, the windows were still dark, but the first shy orange light already bounced across Lake Honrich’s waves. Helreca hastily dismounted and found a spot out of the way where she could write her note.

With her back to the mill’s wall and her quill in hand, she let out a deep sigh. What would she even tell them?

‘I’m sorry, your son is dead. I couldn’t bring his body back because I’m afraid to face you. Signed, the bounty hunter who said she wouldn’t do that.’

No, that wouldn’t do. She scratched the bridge of her nose. This had to be respectful. A pang of shame welled up in her as she set the tip of the quill down on the journal’s paper.

_To Grosta and Leifnarr of Heartwood Mill_

_With great regret, I have to inform you that I have found the body of your son in a vampire den in the hills directly north of your mill._

_You have my deepest condolences._

_I could not tell you this in person, as I was gravely injured in the aforementioned den while clearing out the vampires that resided there._

_Since there are no more vampires there, I hope the guard might be willing to retrieve your son’s body, so he can receive a proper burial._

_Signed, Helreca Belnon_

That wasn’t much better, but she couldn’t come up with anything better. They didn’t need to know the horrors their son must’ve endured. And they didn’t need to know what she’d become, either. They might just start a hunt.

She blew across the paper to dry the ink before she ripped the page out.

As soon as she slid it underneath the house’s door, she pulled herself back into the saddle and didn’t look back.

The road wound itself through the forest, along the Treva River. By the time Helreca reached the first road sign indicating the direction to Ivarstead, the sun had already risen above the horizon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  
> 
>  
> 
> Welcome to Helreca's new undead life.


	6. Chapter 6

Even though the sun already crept over the horizon, drenching everything in a warm glow, that bit of light shouldn’t be enough to be able to make out the silhouettes moving in the underwood. It simply shouldn’t. Since when was there so much movement anyways? The birds already belted out their songs into the woods from the treetops, but other than that, nothing was supposed to be awake.

Mornings were better when one wasn’t aware of how very much not still they were.

Everything rustled. Every little snap of a twig and crunch of a leaf sent Helreca’s head on a swivel. She’d traveled this road dozens of times, but now it sounded and looked like she’d never been here. Briefly, she tried pressing her palms to her ears, but the cacophony of the woods only traded places with blood rushing through all the little blood vessels in her fingers. Out of the frying pan and into the fire.

Eventually, the thatched roofs of Ivarstead peeked through between the trees, promising a roof over her head and some warm food.

That was if she didn’t look like a monster.

There was no way in Oblivion that the townsfolk would just let her be. And who could blame them? This wasn’t exactly the look of a friendly traveler. What had she been thinking? As if she could just ask someone for a cure.

Helreca rode into town with her hood up and her scarf drawn above her nose. All the shutters still did their name proud and stayed shut, and nobody stirred inside the houses, but still. Towards the bridge at the end of the village, two guards sat on a bench, with their elbows on their knees, most likely bored out of their minds.

They could stay bored. Cutting between the houses, Helreca directed Kilian up a hill, towards one of those old Nordic tombs. Wilhelm might’ve mentioned something about it being haunted at some point — her memory on that wasn’t quite solid. If Helreca gave the superstitions the Nords liked to tell tales about any sort of credit, it could have deterred her from considering it some much needed, secluded shelter.

Maybe the other vampires were onto something with their dens. Too bad nobody told them how to keep their house clean.

She rode past it until Ivarstead’s roofs disappeared below the horizon and tied Kilian to a tree.

“Don’t worry, boy, I’ll be back soon,” she whispered. “Hopefully not full of blood like last time.”

Kilian gave a deep rumble in response, as if he wanted to warn her not to break that promise, and dug at the grass with a hoof.

With the town out of sight, the waves of Lake Geir licked at its rocky shores. Clean waves. Helreca held up a blood-soaked sleeve and wrinkled her nose. This would need a wash as soon as possible — along with her entire self.

She stepped around Kilian’s flanks to her saddlebags to pull out a towel and a change of clothes. The other robes weren’t as warm, but then again, she wasn’t traipsing around Winterhold right now either. A salvo of ice spikes took care of some annoyed mudcrabs before she peeled herself out of her travel gear. Apocrypha and the vampire’s den had taken its toll on it. She’d need to add some more stitches and patches to those her robe had already collected in time. The layer of rough, worn leather came first, then the heavy cloth gambeson. Even her undershirt had blood and daedric sludge on it, somehow.

Lake Geir made the tiny hairs on her arms and neck stand on end. If someone had told her she’d take a bath at ungodly hours like this a few days ago, she would’ve scoffed at the idea. If they’d told her she’d do it in water so cold it’d make a Nord turn tail, she would’ve cussed them out. Either way, here she was, stark naked in a lake, scrubbing away. The cold was uncomfortable, but it didn’t bite at her skin as she’d expected. Hopefully, the blood in the water wouldn’t attract any slaughterfish.

The more she looked at herself, the weirder the lack of bruises or wounds became. She tentatively ran a finger over the spot that vampire’s sword had poked out of her chest. Nothing. Her skin was smooth as if nothing had ever happened. But then those eyes glared back up at her from the water’s surface to put things in perspective. Those, she couldn’t scrub off.

At least all the scars she’d accumulated over the decades hadn’t vanished. That part of her still felt like herself.

Once she deemed herself sufficiently clean, she worked the dirt out of her clothes, too. The bottom hem of her robes had torn. She gave a sigh. Looking run down made getting paid properly for her jobs harder, especially with Nords who’d rather her not do the job in the first place. More stitching.

With the now clean but dripping wet bundle in her arms, she made her way back up the hill to Kilian. Hooking a finger into his reins, she guided him away from the tree she’d tied him too, so the rope was almost taut. Maybe he’d stay put this time and not drop her freshly washed stuff in the dirt.

He grumbled at her and shook his head, so instead, she dropped her clothes over the saddle and fished for another rope. The tree would have to do as a clothesline. A bit of cursing and breaking off branches later, her stuff hung in a neat line, and Kilian went back to grazing contently.

Now that that was dealt with, the barrow was the next thing to cross off the list. Draugr she could deal with, as long as what waited in there hadn’t been some kind of powerful priest before it became undead.

Funny how that worked. Now she had something in common with Draugr of all things.

Helreca skirted around the hill so she came out behind one of the houses, hidden from the street. Stepping over the threshold, the well-worn path among all the dust and dry leaves the wind had blown in made her do a double-take. If the place was haunted, why would someone walk in and out of here regularly enough to make a trail on the ground? Skeevers didn’t do that, either.

She quirked a brow and pressed in further. The rest of it looked like any other Nordic ruin she’d been to — full of rotten books, spider webs, and skeletons. For how many coffins people had wedged open, the amount of coin that could still be found in the ruins was staggering. There had been a time when the half-decomposed corpses that lay in the walls gave her the chills, but after she’d been here for a while, they only caught her off guard when they were especially good and playing dead. Completely dead.

After she’d made her way down a wooden spiral staircase that someone had definitely worked on not too long ago, Helreca found herself in a tall corridor boring down into the hillside. Behind a toppled column, the corpses started. They spilled out of the holes in the wall, ancient, pitted swords in hands. And they’d been killed by spells. The ceremonial robes they’d once been buried in hung off their bony limbs in charred shreds.

No doubt about it, this was the work of a mage. The tracks on the floor continued even down here, and a smell rose into Helreca’s nose. Apart from all the dust and mold, the usual musty odor of ruins like this, there was more. It stank.

Helreca exhaled from her nose and kept breathing as flatly as she could muster. The stench became more intense the closer she got to the end of the corridor. It was pungent: Layers upon layers of awful. Just what in Oblivion died in here?

The end of the corridor presented two options. On the left, a doorway led to a small room that had been used to embalm corpses at some point. The right had a similar doorway that seemingly went further in, but it was blocked off by a portcullis. Helreca turned left. Maybe there was still something of interest in there, she’d just take it and leave. Sleeping in this stench wasn’t an option, undead or not.

As she stepped towards the doorway, a hasty shuffle behind her made her whip around.

“Leave this place,” a voice breathed, and behind the portcullis’ iron bars, a ghostly, blue form shimmered in the air. A heartbeat hammered in the ghost’s chest. “Leave this place,” it repeated.

Found the mage.

Helreca rested her hands on her hips. “You’re not fooling anyone, ser.” She rolled her eyes and paused. “Well, you did fool the entire village. Not me.”

The mage’s voice became frantic. “Leave!” he shrieked, readying a spell. “Leave!”

“I was just go— “

A fireball blasted into the wall next to her, and the heat made her close her eyes. “Leave!”

“Okay, now you’ve done it,” Helreca growled and drew her sword.

From one moment to the next, she was at the gate and grabbed it with her free hand, pulling upwards. And the gate moved. With a nasty grinding noise of stone against metal, she shoved it upwards until chains in the walls creaked and snapped and it sprung up.

For a second, it seemed like the shadows the braziers threw against the walls lengthened impossibly. Helreca’s foot connected with the mage’s chest and slammed him into the wall. Something cracked. Bone. She drove her sword through his ribs— 

—and her teeth stopped just short of his neck.

Jumping back in disgust, Helreca ripped her sword out and let his body crumple to the floor in a gangly, bony heap. His ghostly aura vanished, revealing a sordid Dunmer who must’ve given up personal hygiene ages ago. The smell made Helreca’s eyes water.

Still, she’d almost bitten him. What the fuck was wrong with her? This couldn’t happen every single time she got into a fight!

She gave a frustrated sigh and wiped her blade on his clothes. Her hand shook. Sheathing her sword, she took a deep breath, stench be damned. She grabbed her hand to try and force it still, but that only made her arms shake instead. This damnable sickness would be the end of her if she couldn’t get rid of it, or at least control these urges. It hadn’t even been a day since she last drank blood, and now she already went after more? How did vampires even experience hunger? Was it like this? Because she sure as shit didn’t feel hungry, and certainly not for this bastard’s blood.

Focus on something else. Get some fresh air.

She spun on her heel and stormed back out the way she came in.

* * *

Why did this damn barrow’s entrance have to be pointed towards the town? Only made slinking in and out of it unseen that much more difficult. Still, Ivarstead lay as sleepy as it did before she entered, so she made her way to Kilian and back without getting spotted. Farthest from the entrance, next to a window overlooking the town, she settled into a corner after letting a flame burn away the spiderwebs and dust.

She flipped her journal open on a new spread and titled it ‘Vampire Observations.’ With a deep sigh, she added the first heading: Basic condition. She listed her symptoms below, and each key point made the hairs on her arms stand on end. The longer the list became, the more she dreaded having to add another item. And she got the distinct feeling she’d have to, sooner or later. It hadn’t even been a full day since she was turned, and that simply wasn’t enough time to experience every bit of this condition. Even still, the list didn’t end up being short by any stretch of the imagination.

Some taffy treats would be nice right about now. Just something sweet. Comfort food.

Should get some soon, just to try. The previous supply had been spoiled with blood and sludge from Apocrypha.

She flipped back to the last journal entry and scribbled down her plan for now. Finding someone to cure her still had top priority. Not being lynched took the second spot. The bigger cities had a higher chance of anyone knowing something useful, but Riften wasn’t an option. People knew her in Riften.

Slowly but surely, exhaustion took hold and made her cross out her writing. With a wry smile, she put her journal aside and leaned back. What a terrible vampire she was, going to sleep without a coffin. Outside, in the village, the first shutters opened just as her eyes fell shut.

* * *

Metal grinding on metal and loud yelling made her snap up from her dreamless sleep. Spells and glowing red eyes flashed through the darkness outside, in a flurry of arms and swords. A guard yelled for help, interrupted by the otherworldly howl of a death hound. Everything else fell silent for a moment

Helreca sprang to her feet and drew her sword. Those were vampires out there, slaughtering citizens. She sprinted down the hill towards the street, glowing eyes and teeth be damned.

“Hey!” she yelled, “hey, bloodsuckers! How about you take on someone your own size!”

One of the death hounds skidded across the cobblestone and turned towards her, its mouth already open. It ran into Helreca’s ice spike teeth first. Its head was ripped backward and it tumbled over its front paws. One of the thralls accompanying the vampires ran past the guards, a hatchet raised above his head.

Helreca spun out of the way and cut his torso in two. His sorry excuse for armor gave about the same resistance as a warm block of butter.

Meanwhile, one of the vampires pulled a stream of red energy out of one of the guards. With his movements becoming more and more sluggish, the guard had no way of defending himself.

Gritting her teeth, Helreca channeled the cold through her left arm for as long as she could before her fingertips started to tingle, and released. “Hey, batfucker!

The vampire turned around just in time for Helreca’s ice spike hitting him in the shoulder.

“You dare defy me?” he hissed. “You’re no match for me, fledgling!”

As the last word left his lips, he dissolved into a cloud of black smoke, only to pop up two steps away from her with his dagger swinging. Helreca dodged it and launched a counter, but the vampire blocked with far more force than the short blade should allow.

“Let me show you how mortal you still are,” he gloated and lunged towards her.

_I wish I still was, you s’wit_ , she thought.

Sidestepping his stab, Helreca let heat pool in her palm before a stream of fire surged out of it, engulfing the vampire. His robes caught fire. Through the flames, he whipped up his left again. When the flow of red hit her chest, there was a violent tug at Helreca’s very being.

She gasped at the sensation, watched as a triumphant grin contorted the vampire’s face. He curled his fingers as if he was grasping something.

Helreca gave a wordless shout and channeled a ward. As soon as the stream was interrupted, she spun into a strike, cleaving into his shoulder. She didn’t leave him any time to yell or dodge or disappear. Her foot swiped out his legs from underneath him, and before he even hit the ground, her sword skewered his torso.

She pulled it out and sprinted at the thrall currently battering the guard’s shield with a mace. He barely had time to turn towards her before she decapitated him.

The street was littered with corpses and slick with blood. Two guards had lost their lives, but most importantly, all of the vampires and thralls shared their fate. Ripped out of their sleep, the townspeople came out of their houses. While the guards were still making sure all the death hounds were actually dead, Helreca wiped her blade off for the umpteenth time in the last few days and flipped her hood up. She walked back towards the barrow, her head between her shoulders. Hopefully, no one had heard what the vampire said.

“Niels and Erik didn’t make it,” someone said — a young woman, still winded from the fight.

A gruff voice replied. “Shame. Still green behind the ears, those two.”

When Helreca rounded the wall around the house opposite the Vilemyr Inn, another woman called out to her. “Hey! Thanks for the help! Woulda lost more without you!”

Helreca lifted a hand in dismissal and walked faster.

“D’you wanna come inside? Drink’s on me!”

Fuck.

Rejecting that offer would be like a slap to the face to a Nord. They’d discover her and add her to the pile of corpses. Everything inside her screamed to run for the hills, hop into Kilian’s saddle and go, but she didn’t. Instead, like a complete and utter s’wit, she stopped. Temba Wide-Arm certainly lived up to her name. Her usual scowl made way for worry and the hint of a warm smile.

“Hey, you’ve brought in bear pelts before, right?” she asked. With sharp eyes, she sized Helreca up. “Gods, you must be famished.” She rubbed her arms. “And freezing, too. Come inside, we’ll get you warmed up.”

Had Temba ever been this friendly before? She must’ve noticed, right? A heavy woodcutter’s axe dangled from the belt she’d hastily slung around her waist. That thing could do some serious damage, and there was no doubt Temba would use it if she needed to. If Helreca became the need, she’d have to fight back. She’d have to cut down people like Temba because even like this, she wouldn’t just accept her fate.

  
  
  


Almost automatically, Helreca followed her into the inn. The heat from the hearth hit her in the face like an atronach’s fiery cough, made her want to take the hood down and sit down at the bar. She did sit, the hood stayed on, though.

The bard poked her blonde head out from one of the rooms. “Is it over?” she asked. “Are they gone?”

“They’re dead, Lynly, thanks in part to our guest here,” Temba said, giving Helreca a nod. She vanished in another room, only to return with a few coins that she placed on the bar. “Get her something to drink, will you?” Turning to Helreca, she leaned against the bar. “Do you need a room?”

“No, I… The commotion woke me up, sera.” The words came out coarse and quiet, a bit slurred too because she didn’t open her mouth far enough. Fangs were awful.

Lynly placed a pitcher of water in front of her. “We do have a free bed right now, milady.”

Helreca gripped the pitcher with both hands and nipped at the water. The barrel it’d been stored in made it taste distinctly earthy and a bit stale. “Thank you, but I wasn’t planning on staying long.”

“Well, then stay vigilant on the road.  These vampire attacks are turning into more and more of a problem.” Temba shook her head and crossed her arms. “I’ve heard of some sort of mage in Morthal who could allegedly cure them, but these undead bastards seem to be enjoying themselves.”

Morthal. That was at least a few days away on horseback, but she’d make the trip. Maybe accept a job or two on the way.

“Vampirism can be cured?” Helreca asked.

Temba raised her eyebrows and gave a shrug. “I don’t know, I’ve never been one. I just heard rumors. But, you can’t really force them to cure themselves, can you? Better off reminding them what ‘dead’ really means.”

“I guess,” Helreca mumbled after a too-long pause. She shimmied off the barstool. “Thanks for the hospitality, sera, but I should really get going.”

“Wait! Let me at least give you some provisions for your travels,” Lynly said and hurried down the stairs behind the counter.

Temba looked after her for a moment before she got up from the counter as well. “I suppose someone like you isn’t in as much danger out there at night, but watch yourself. Would hate to hear you didn’t make it.” With that, she marched off into her room again and shut the door.

Someone like her? What was that supposed to mean? Did Temba suspect anything? Maybe she’d seen the fangs. She must’ve, they stuck out like a sore thumb. If not the fangs, there was no way she hadn’t noticed the eyes.

Fuck.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Helreca pulled her scarf up to cover her face up to her nose. She’d cover her eyes too, but she had to see.

Muffled cursing and things toppling over came up from the cellar, and Helreca found herself waiting in the middle of the damn taproom. What was she doing? She should get out of here, leave, before they called the guard on her!

She turned for the door, but Lynly was back already.

Holding out a bundle, she came up to Helreca. “There’s some bread and cheese and dried meat in there, milady,” she said. “I even added some sweets.”

“Thanks,” Helreca said and turned towards the door. “Goodnight.”

“Stay safe, and thank you!” Lynly called after her.

When the door closed behind her, she had to remind herself not to run.

* * *

The trek to Morthal would be a grueling one. It’d lead her through the middle of the Pale, one of those holds that were the primary reason Helreca much rather stayed in Skyrim’s south than up there. Heat she could deal with, but cold like that, for extended periods of time? Fuck right off with that.

She unfolded her map of Skyrim that she’d tucked between the pages of her journal. As she followed the roads that’d lead her to Morthal with her index, she stopped just short of the city itself.

Maybe she could avoid trudging through the snow for too long, after all. Somewhere between Whiterun and Riverwood, a road led to the mountains — and abruptly stopped, only to begin again on the other side. Whoever made this map had only drawn in three circles in a row in between, on the mountains. Perhaps a warning of trolls? A lone troll wasn’t too difficult to deal with, Helreca had done it many times before, but as far as she could tell, this was the only place on the map specifically marked like that.

If there was a pass over that mountain, it’d significantly shorten her trip.

And trolls weren’t exactly the smartest creatures on Nirn.

With a sigh, she folded the map up again. She still had a few days to think about the shortcut. Whiterun would be where she’d have to make a decision, and if she reached that by midday, that’d be fast. After she fished around in her back some, she found a stick of charcoal.

_ Cure for vampirism _ , she wrote on the page with her symptoms.  _ Mage, Morthal. _

She stared at the words for a moment before she slapped the journal shut and stowed it away. Driving her heels into Kilian’s flanks, she spurned him out of his trot into a somewhat lumbering canter. The less time she spent like this, the better. A wry smile tugged at her lips.

Hopefully, the cure wasn’t just a swift stab through the heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Even undead, she can't watch innocent people get killed.


End file.
